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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Monday,June 14, 2004.
Maroko evictees cry for justice
By Dada Jackson
Senior Property & Environment
Correspondent, Lagos
Fourteen years after they
were forcibly evicted from their lands by the former military government
of Brigadier-General Raji Alagbe Rasaki of Lagos State, the displaced
people of the old Maroko have continued to seek for justice, even as they
resolved to take their case to the court of public opinion.
The Chairman, Maroko Evictees Committee, Mr. Samuel
Adeniyi Aiyeyemi, in an appeal to Lagos State, governor, Asiwaju Bola
Ahmed Tinubu, noted with regret, the seemingly non-challant attitude of
the state government to their plight.
According to Aiyeyemi, the plea became necessary
because: ‘‘In spite of the fact that our Lagos State government has
driven us past the walls, into the open streets for these 14 years; and
in spite of the seeming fact that your excellency has been very
insensitive to our plights, we would continue relentlessly and in a
peaceful atmosphere, to ask for redress on our forced eviction from our
legitimate homes in old Maroko. And even now, we have not lost hope that
the Almighty Allah will direct your mind in our favour.”
He said the Lagos State government (not Tinubu’s
administration) in conjunction with the Nigeria Army “who were employees
of the Federal Government joined hands and demolished our whole ten
thousand residential houses in old Maroko. The military operations were
led by the then Colonel Raji Rasaki - a Nigerian soldier.”
Aiyeyemi, who described the action of the
soldiers as ‘Barbaric,’ pointed out, that the soldiers chased out over
300,000 people from their ‘‘legitimate’’ homes into the ‘‘open air’’ and
seized the Maroko coastal lands for themselves.’
The chairman noted that at the Court of
Appeal in 1991, the state government admitted that its act was done in
error, with the erroneous belief that the said land was still under
government acquisition.
He added that the state government had offered to
settle the matter out of court.
He descried a situation whereby 13 years
after the pledge, the state government was yet to fulfill its commitment.
He further stated that in the year 2000,
the state government confirmed at the Supreme Court, that it had
withdrawn its interests from Maroko land since 1977, thereby re-affirming
its earlier admission that the demolition of Maroko in 1990 was an error.
He pointed out that towards the end of
1990, the state government “dumped” about 2000 Maroko house owners at the
abandoned housing projects at Ilasan, Ikota and Epe, adding, “till date,
they remained dumped”.
Aiyeyemi lamented that the remaining 8,000
‘house-owners’ with their families, have been left to ‘‘waste away in the
streets for these fourteen years’’.
He noted that since they were forcefully
removed from their houses in 1990, over 50,000 members of the displaced
community have lost their lives, adding ‘‘that as their inflicted wounds
remain untreated, they have become too deep and every passing month’’.
He chided the state government for
receiving members of the Justice Oputa-led Human Right Commission by
making a commitment, that the Maroko evictees’ issue had been amicably
resolved “thereby making it unnecessary for us to make any complaints at
the commission, but till today, nothing has been done.”
While exonerating the Tinubu’s
administration of culpability, the chairman of Maroko Evictees Committee,
nonetheless, reminded Tinubu of the exigency of government, which entails
the inheriting of both the assets and liabilities of preceding government.
Aiyeyemi wondered why the state governor, had not
deemed it fit, to acknowledge any of its numerous letters to him, seeking
an audience with him.
He said, “it might be that the same sort of official
that ex-Governor Michael Otedola proclaimed to have misled government to
demolish Maroko, are still holding sway by either misinforming or
inter-sections. We shall therefore make the presumable request audience a
public one, so that we can have some assurance that someone, somewhere
will carry our appeal to your excellency. We note all governments,
including your administration, have always enjoined all aggrieved persons
to rather dialogue than taking to the streets.”
Aiyeyemi, therefore, appealed to the state governor to
expedite action on their matter, arguing that ‘‘justice delayed, is
justice denied’’.
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