Lagos govt warn residents against illegal buildings

By Bisola Adeyemo

Lagos state government has advised residents to always follow the physical planning law and build appropriately, adding that the government’s zero-tolerance for illegal building law was still in force.

Spokesperson for Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr Mukaila Sanusi announced this in a statement on Thursday, in Lagos.

The statement said that the commisioner in the ministry, Dr Idris Salako, led a special operation team to nip in the bud the illegal and unapproved development, Environews reports.

While leading the special operation team to nip in the bud the illegal and unapproved development on estate encroaching Ojota-Maryland wetland, Salako decried that the indiscriminate attempt to illegally convert the buffer zone into an estate, ignoring the negative consequences to the environment.

He said that the developers sandfilled the wetland and began construction, thereby, willfully enchroaching “on part of Opebi Park and the alignment of the proposed Opebi-Maryland-Ojota link Road conceived by the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure”.

According to him, developers of the site did not have any form of title to the land from the Lands Bureau or drainage clearance from the Office of Drainage Services.
He added that the development was not backed by a planning permit and had no layout approval to rely on.

The commissioner, therefore, urged developers to always take advantage of the free advisory services of the ministry on planning information to guide appropriately on land use.