PDP, APC disagree over Ogun demolition exercise

Scenes of the demolition at Yakoyo ...on Monday. | credits: Goke Famadewa and Samson Folarin.

Reactions have continued to trail Mondays reported demolition of over 100 houses and the displacement of hundreds of residents of Ojodu/Alagbole, Yakoyo and Ijoko by the Ogun State Government to pave the way for the state ongoing road expansion projects.

On Tuesday in Abeokuta, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party disagreed with the ruling All Progressives Congress over the exercise.

While the PDP and LP condemned the exercise, the APC argued that it was being done for the sake of developing the state in the interest of all the citizens. The APC also argued that compensation was already being worked out for genuine property owners in the affected areas.

According to the opposition parties, the exercise lacked a human face because aside from its failure to give the affected residents adequate notice to quit, the state government did not put in place a resettlement plan before pulling down the houses and displacing the people of the areas.

The Publicity Secretary of the state chapter of the PDP, Mr. Waliu Oladipo, said the action of the APC-led government came to the opposition party as a shock.

The PDP wondered why the Governor Ibikunle Amosun administration, which it alleged had been unable to complete the road expansion projects it had embarked upon in some other parts of the state, would go ahead in carrying out further demolition of buildings for the same purpose.

Similarly, the LP in the state described the demolition of structures in the Ijoko and Akute areas of the state by the government as a deliberate infringement on the rights of the people under the pretext of carrying out urban development.

The party State Secretary, Sunday Oginni, said the Amosun administrations penchant for stealing had pushed it into destroying peoples property in order to make claims for the compensations it would never pay.

But the APC State Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Sola Lawal, accused the opposition parties of making self-serving criticisms of the Amosun administrations programmes.

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PDP, APC disagree over Ogun demolition exercise