80% of Lekki buildings have no approval, Lagos commissioner for physical planning and urban development reveals
Dr. Oluyinka Olumide, the Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, made a shocking revelation that took thousands of Nigerians aback. He stated that 80% of the buildings erected in Ibeju have no government approval. He said the majority of the lands in Lekki were not permitted to become residential areas. Most of them were marked for agriculture but families sell the land to unsuspecting members of the public without considering the future consequences.
While speaking to the newsmen, Dr. Oluyinka says, "Just last week Thursday and Friday, myself and the team were in the Ibeju Lekki and Epe axis and you would agree with me that anybody passing through that corridor would see a lot of estates marked. We went there, and I can tell you that from what we saw, over 80 percent of them do not have approval. The procedure to get approval is first to get the planning information, as to what those areas have been zoned for. In this case, what we have is agricultural land, and people now go to their families to buy agricultural land. Of course, those lands would be sold because those families do not know the use such land would be put to."
He added, "The next thing to do is the fence permit. If you missed the earlier information on not knowing the area zoning, at the point of getting the fence permit, you would be able to detect what the area is zoned for. After that, the layout permits a large expense of land follows. So, you can see all these layers, but people still go ahead to start advertising. Some have even gone to the extent of displaying the sizes they want to sell. Imagine someone in the diaspora who wants to send money without any knowledge. Then, no approval is eventually gotten. Even if they pass the assignment and the survey to them, we would not grant the individual permit, because that area is not zoned for that purpose."