The Lagos State Government says it has halted construction on buffer zone area of the Wasimi, Maryland section of Ojota-Maryland wetland being develop into a residential estate.
Mr Mukaila Sanusi, spokesperson for Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, announced this in a statement on Thursday, August 12, 2021 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.
It said that the team included the ministry’s top officials, operatives of the Lagos State Task Force on Environmental Offences, Lagos State Building Control Agency and the Special Operations Unit in the governor’s office.
Salako decried 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 urged developers to always take advantage of the free advisory services of the ministry on planning information to guide appropriately on land use.
He advised Lagos residents to respect the physical planning law, build right and be always conscious that the government’s zero tolerance for illegal building law was still in force.
By Grace Alegba
