The former governor of Anambra State and Labour Party presidential candidate in 2023, Peter Obi on Tuesday, visited the Lagos Trade Fair Market demolition site.
The state had torn down dozens of properties amid claims they violated rivers and drainage channels.
Obi was accompanied by Senators Victor Umeh, Tony Nwoye, and Enyinnaya Abaribe, and the last LP’s gubernatorial candidate in Lagos, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, amongst others.
Addressing a crowd of affected traders, he warned authorities that, “You can’t be talking about foreign investors while you’re destroying the ones in your country. One of the houses destroyed here, the owner partnered with foreigners, and during the demolition, the foreign partners were right there. Do you expect them, after they return back to their country, to come and invest again in Nigeria?”
This demolition is not new. Reports show that Lagos State recently pulled down 19 buildings at the Trade Fair plaza alone. Many traders say they received no prior notice.
Demolitions in Lagos often carry ethnic overtones. Traders, many of them Igbo, accuse the state of targeting them to sabotage their economic activity and punish them for their independent political leanings.
The state government defends its action. It says the exercise is to enforce physical planning laws, remove illegal structures, and comply with original layout plans for the Trade Fair complex.
Commissioner Dr. Oluyinka Olumide argued that even though the Trade Fair is located on federal land, property owners must still obey Lagos state planning laws.
Bigger Picture: Drainage, Flooding, and Urban Planning
Lagos has also started demolitions along the Ikota River in the Lekki–Eti Osa area to clear illegal structures blocking drainage. The exercise aims to reduce perpetual flood risk in parts of Lekki.
Earlier, the state had issued building regularisation amnesty, which expired, leaving many structures vulnerable to demolition.
Critics say the process lacks transparency. Some owners claim they were not notified. One trader declared: “If government doesn’t want companies or development here, they should just come out and say it.”
For residents and traders, the demolitions mean loss of life savings, destroyed businesses, and uncertainty.
And no one from the state government has been able to answer the question of why state officials stand idly by while structures are built up, often with state building approvals, only to begin to knocking them down for violating planning rules, years later.
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