Former Nigeria’s education minister and co-founder of Transparency International, Mrs Obiageli Ezekwesili has demanded more transparency in the ongoing demolition of some buildings at the Alaba International Market at Ojo Lagos.
Several buildings housing many shops were demolished last weekend. The state government claimed the building failed a structural integrity test and marked them for demolition.
Ezekwesili said her advice was to douse the rising public perception that the government’s action was a “vengeful political attack against the predominant Igbo community in Alaba Market”.
She demanded that government share with the public “details of each destroyed building and the dateline of Due Process rules that were exhausted by your Government before it was removed”.
“Governance by maliciousness does no one any good. A word is sufficient for only the wise”, she cautioned.
Alaba market is perhaps one of West Africa’s largest, dominated by Igbo traders from the eastern part of Nigeria.
Some traders expressing their shock and dismay said the government gave them only hours’ notice before the demolition, saying they felt they were been deliberately targeted for predominantly supporting another political party at both the state and federal elections.
Other traders claim the building’s structural integrity test was a mere ruse to mask the state’s real intention of forcing them out in favour of some Chinese investors instead.
During the elections, reports of ethnic profiling of Igbos, threats and several violent attacks to prevent them from the polls were widespread.
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