RECENT LAGOS STATE PROPERTIES DEMOLITION, WICKED, BARBARIC – EX NBA AGUATA BOSS

Eche Nwaobasi

Onitsha/Nnewi

Barrister Clifford Iloegbune Okoye one time Chairman Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Aguata Branch has said that the recent demolition of properties mostly owned by the Igbos by the authorities of the Federal Housing Agency (FHA) in Lagos State was a barbaric and wicked action noting that such action is capable of igniting ethnic hatred and clashes which may result to civil disobedience which if it occurs will affect the entire country or civil war.

Making this assertion while speaking to newsmen on the demolition in his office at Onitsha yesterday, Iloegbune who was visibly pained by this action further noted that everything about the demolition was wrong both in approach, procedure and execution adding that the proper and legal way of carrying out of such action was not followed, insisting that the action portrays that the government or authorities who undertook it are incentive to the feelings of the masses who the action has put into severe hardship.

While emphasizing that the action was barbaric and primitive, he stated that the proper procedure could have been giving these tenants notice of demolition stating cogent reasons, gather them and addressing them as a way of preparing their minds, compensate them to the quantum of investment as well as conducting the demolition with human face.

Said the Legal Practitioner, “this demolition was a demonstration of insensitiveness of the highest order by the Lagos State Government and FHA, whatever reasons they are giving is nothing but a ruse. My position is that the action was callous, wicked, barbaric and if that demolition had ethnic undertone I mean if the target is for a particular ethnic or pressure groups, persons etc. such actions are capable of igniting confusion and breakdown of law and order which might lead to another civil war in the country”.