Ilaje Demolition: Ebonyi Govt Profiles 1200 Victims

Abah Joshua

The Ebonyi State Commissioner for Special Duties/State Diaspora, Honorable Valentine Okike has disclosed that affected Ebonyi people from Ilaje Otumara and Baba Ijora communities in Lagos Mainland were being profiled by the state government.

It would be recalled that the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) had forcefully evicted residents of of Ilaje Otumara and Baba Ijora communities in Lagos Mainland evicted following a large-scale demolition exercise during which over one thousand two hundred Ebonyians were affected.

However, in an interview in Abakaliki, Valentine Okike, who disclosed that the Ebonyi State government under governor Francis Nwifuru had succeeded in evacuating over one thousand two hundred victims to Ebonyi, said the government would not allow her citizens to suffer.

The commissioner said, “Officially, we were informed on a Monday, the governor of Ebonyi State under the leadership of our able governor Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru ordered that we should go and bring them back and that is exactly what I did. I went to Lagos and bring them back.

“It was an eyesore seeing small children below three or four years living in an open place under the bridge. If you see the clips, you will know that these people are going through a kind of hardship. It was on that basis that the governor said that I will not allow my people to suffer. Resources were made available to bring them back.

“The situation was very bad. I can tell you authoritatively that for those of them that want to come back, all of them have come home. There were some people who do not want to come back home and you cannot force an adult to come back home. I just have a live broadcast with EBBC, the number is a neighborhood of one thousand, two hundred. But that was the population I met on ground not the number of Ebonyians that came back home.

“We are still profiling them. The data we are still compiling to be sure that those of them that came back, that government will assist in due time are Ebonyians. So, I want be very sure, it will not be anything less than eight hundred. But the people I met on ground both people that come and did not come is in the neighborhood of one thousand, two hundred.

“It was not only Ebonyi were part of the demolition, other people from other states were there. But I can tell you that It was only Ebonyi State government that took that proactive measure to bring them back home. I can understand what the governor is trying to avoid. One he is a man who believes in good governance, the only way good governance can be entrenched in the heart of men is only when the provision of the constitution as enshrined in Chapter four is obeyed to the latter which is the primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of the people.

“I believe that the government that asked me to bring them back will eventually do something. Any action taken is on the prerogative of the governor, I do not have the capacity to say. I am sure that the governor in his usual way must do something for his people. He cannot bring them back to suffer. That is the reason why we are trying to profile them because at a time, people were bringing their goods from different locations not from Ilaje precisely because they saw the opportunity to bring back their property back home.

“Some of them who were not victim of Ilaje Otumara and Baba Ijora may not be people who will be captured in this exercise, so people whose houses and businesses were destroyed are the people that called the attention of the government and those are the people we are working with. So the data will be provided after proper and thorough scrutiny”, he said.