The Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps, popularly known as KAI, on Monday removed 54 illegal shanties that housed 84 occupants and eight makeshift toilets beneath Eko Bridge in the Ebute-Ero area of the state.
This was disclosed by the Corps Marshal of the agency, Maj Olaniyi Olatunbosun Cole (retd), who led the dislodgement operation.
The Corps Marshal said, “The Elegbeta Water Channel, which spans the Lagos Lagoon right under the Eko Bridge around the Ebute-Ero axis, turned home to miscreants, illegal occupants occupying the waterfront, usually in the habit of promoting indiscriminate dumping of refuse into the lagoon, activating the base of the bridge as a criminal hideout and encouraging open defecation, urination; and we swung into action after serving a seven-day abatement notice which was not adhered to.”
Cole appreciated the leadership of the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, stressing that the mandate of the agency to maintain a cleaner and greener environment as enshrined in the THEMES+ agenda of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu remained paramount and sacrosanct to the collective cleanliness of the state’s environs.
The Corps Marshal also warned against the indiscriminate dumping of refuse into drains and water bodies, as well as the erection of illegal structures on road setbacks, lay-bys, kerbs, medians, and verges.
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He urged defaulters to obtain a valid waste collection contract, maintaining that the law would take its due course and deal with violators who showed disregard for environmental laws.
In May, the Lagos State Government carried out the removal of shanties across some bridges in the state. Part of the exercises was carried out under the Adeniji Adele bridge in the Lagos Island area of the state.
The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Wahab, had previously noted that the government discovered an apartment under the Dolphin Estate Bridge, Ikoyi, where tenants paid N250,000 annual rent.
