Officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), escorted by armed Task Force, stormed the popular Alaba International Market in Ojo and demolished 17 “distressed” plazas in the early hours of Sunday.
A statement on Sunday afternoon said LASBCA’s bulldozers went to work on the buildings immediately after they arrived at the site on Sunday morning.
The targeted buildings had been marked for demolition since Friday, following the agency’s announcement that the structures would be demolished before Monday.
LASBCA’s General Manager, Mr. Gbolahan Oki said on Friday that the agency had served several vacation notices on occupants of the structures since 2016.
He said: “We have been serving them notices since 2016 and when we came on board, we served them too. What they do whenever we go there is send area boys to disrupt our services.
“About a month ago, we made a list of 349 distressed buildings. The properties marked are supposed to be on the list and due to the fact that they harass our staff, they are not captured on the list. They won’t allow our staff to do their jobs and that is why they are not on the list.
“So, we had to call the task force to enforce what we are supposed to do and these notices have been served to them since last year and apart from that, these properties have been served since 2016″.
Some of the shopping plazas demolished were identified as G80 Alaba Rago Road, Good Season Shopping Complex, the building on 840 Ojo Igbede and the structure behind Oba Oseni Plaza.
Oki had hinted on Friday that the agency would not “stop at the 17 distressed buildings, but we are moving to other localities. We have several buildings to be demolished, about 400″.
