Nigeria: President Tinubu, Call Minister of Works to Order On Coastal Highway Demolitions, By Jiti Ogunye

19 May 2024
Premium Times (Abuja)
By Jiti Ogunye

Our clients place a high hope in the governance era of renewed hope and are confident that Your Excellency will grant their plea.

15th May 2024

His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,

President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces,

The Presidency,

Aso Villa,

Abuja, FCT.

Your Excellency,

DISTORTION IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE LAGOS-CALABAR COASTAL HIGHWAY BY ARBITRARY DEVIATION FROM THE LONG-ESTABLISHED RIGHT OF WAY BY THE HON MINISTER OF WORKS AND THE FEDERAL CONTROLLER OF WORKS, AND THE THREATENED UNLAWFUL DEMOLITION OF PROPERTY OF OWNERS AND RESIDENTS AT LAFIAJI COMMUNITY, ETI OSA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, LAGOS STATE - PLEA FOR PRESIDENTIAL INTERVENTION

We act as solicitors to residents of and landed property owners in Lafiaji Community in Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria whose property have been marked for removal and demolition by the Lagos State Government, acting at the behest of the Federal Government of Nigeria (Federal Ministry of Works) (hereinafter referred to as "our clients"), on whose behalf we write this letter.

Our clients include Professor Oluropo Sekoni, Dr Kola Akinleye, Mr Bonojo Olalekan, Mr Festus Ogwu and many others who are well respected, law-abiding senior citizens in this country.

Our clients are constrained to write you this open letter as a desperate step to secure relief and save their homes and property from an impending unlawful and unwarranted demolition. The case of our clients is as stated below:

  1. Our clients, numbering over eighty (80) persons, individually purchased and came into possession of their respective landed property at various times many years ago. They all have a common predecessor in title in the Ojomu Chieftaincy Family of Ajiran-Land in Lagos State. The title of their predecessor in title, before it was passed onto our clients, was confirmed by a judgment of the High Court of Justice of Western Nigeria, delivered on the 12th day of December 1960 in Suit No. I/302/55 (Oba Onibeju & Ors. Vs Salumonu Oyebola & Ors.), which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Nigeria on the 25th day of January 1965 in Suit No. FSC/268/1963. After the emergence of the Land Use Act, 1978, the said title was further affirmed by a judgment of the High Court of Lagos State in Suit No. ID/1883/89 (Alhaji Fatai Ajetumobi & Ors vs. Attorney-General of Lagos State, which was delivered on 18th day of October 1991, and which declared that the Ojomu Chieftaincy Family was the holder of the customary right of occupancy over the said land. Eventually, the Lagos State Government, by an Official Gazette No. 15. Vol. 37, 2004, dated 7th day of April 2004, adopted the said judgment, and excised from compulsory global acquisition, the entire Lafiaji Village, an excision of which our clients' respective landed property forms a part, down the line.
  2. In the acquisition of their plots of land and development of their respective homes and property, our clients obtained requisite consents of the Lagos State Government to their deeds of assignments, had their respective survey plans hewed from the approved Ojomu Family Layout Plan, and obtained all the necessary building approvals and development permits from the relevant agencies of the Lagos State Government.
  3. In the acquisitions of their plots of lands and in building their respective property, our clients were well informed about the Right of Way, clearly marked, beaconed, and established for the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, and, therefore, ensured that they did not encroach on or trespass the established Right of Way.
  4. However, there are those who, overtime, have built on the said Right of Way and constructed huge estates crisscrossing this in the illusion that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway would never be built, without any valid legal title to the land on which they built; or with government officials-assisted fabricated certificates of occupancy having embossed survey-plans (the area coordinates of which truly are that of lands adjacent and proximate to the Right of Way, but which are passed off as that of a land situated within or covering the Right of Way, for the purpose of obtaining certificates of occupancy). These persons also either did not obtain valid building approvals and development permits from the relevant agencies of the Lagos State Government or were assisted by corrupt officials of government to obtain doctored documents.
  5. As an outcome of the recent visit of the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works to the communities affected by the construction of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, especially regarding compliance with the enforcement of the Right of Way, valuation of affected landed property, service of removal and demolition notices, and compensation, the Honourable Minister of Works and the Federal Controller of Works decided to deviate from the scrupulous implementation of the Right of Way by specifically directing surveyors of the Federal Government of Nigeria (Ministry of Works) on the project to establish a fresh Right of Way, create a new alignment and alter the road-course into the area where our clients' plots of lands and houses are situated - an area which was not covered by the long established Right of Way.
  6. From available information, the new alignment being dictated by the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works have not been assimilated by the Office of the Surveyor-General of Lagos State and the Lands Bureau, but curiously, the Office of Development Matters, Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development has served our clients "Removal Notice on Physical Development Within the Right of Way (RoW) of the Proposed Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Project in Lagos State ***Establishment of Right of Way***", dated 10th of May 2024, demanding that within seven (7) days of being served the notices, our clients should remove their buildings from the new, arbitrarily established Right of Way, and submit any documents of their landed property to the Permanent Secretary, Land Bureau of Lagos State, Alausa, Lagos State for compensation purposes.
  7. Further, our clients have gathered information that the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works have an improper and less-than-patriotic reasons for arbitrarily directing a departure from the long-established Right of Way for the construction of the Highway. Amongst some huge housing estates that allegedly have sprung up illicitly on the long-established Right of Way are Ocean Bay Estate and others. The developers of these Estates and some of the owners-occupiers of buildings therein are alleged to have strong political connections, ethnic ties, and social links with the powers that be; hence the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works have in an unabashed display of nepotism, as alleged, "ruled" that the properties in these estates are too valuable to be demolished, and that demolishing them would attract huge compensation from the Federal Government. In consequence, it is being alleged that the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works directed that the Right of Way be altered away from the established path and the said estates, and that a new alignment be made through our clients' lands that were never established as the Right of Way.
  8. After whimsically taking the decision to alter the Right of Way as aforesaid, the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works found a pretext for their actions by labelling our clients' properties as shanties, to create the false impression that our clients are unlawful settlers and illegal occupiers of their lands. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
  9. The said decision of the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works to change the Right of Way and, therefore, the course of the Highway is an abuse of power and unlawful exercise of ministerial discretions. They both have no latitude of executive prerogatives to do that which they have allegedly directed should be done.
  10. As a result of the action of the Honourable Minister of Works and Federal Controller of Works, our clients are now being confronted with the prospect of being rendered homeless. The landed property affected are not just realty investments but also homes of many of them, some of whom currently are overseas and, therefore, are in no position to vacate and yield up possession of their property for demolition within the unreasonable seven (7)-day ultimatum they were unconscionably given to flee their abodes.

Your Excellency, our clients are in support of the rightful, law-based, and people-friendly execution of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Project, in accordance with the long-established Right of Way. Our clients, however, fail, hard as they have tried, to see any legal or moral justification for the threatened violation of their constitutional right to own immovable property and their right to freedom from discrimination (Sections 34 and 43 & 44 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended, referenced), by a Minister (and by extension Your Government) that have sworn to uphold the Constitution. They cannot understand why their legal rights and interests must be sacrificed to please violators of the long-established Right of Way, whose illegally constructed properties (houses) can be demolished and removed without any compensation whatsoever, and with justification. Why are our clients-law abiding citizens-being rewarded with oppression, while violators, who knowingly and arrogantly built on the long-established Right of Way are being treated with reverence?

Your Excellency, our clients plead with you to call the Minister of Works to order and direct that he should abandon the new alignment for the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway at Lafiaji, Eti Osa Local Government Area, and revert to the original long-established Right of Way.

Our clients place a high hope in the governance era of renewed hope and are confident that Your Excellency will grant their plea.

While anticipating that the grant of their plea shall soon be reflected in the expected reversion to the original Right of Way, Your Excellency, kindly accept the assurances of our clients' highest regards.

Yours faithfully,

Jiti Ogunye, Esq.

Principal Solicitor and Counsel.

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