Festac Town was such a beautiful estate which used to be a sight to behold with functional amenities. The road network could compete with any anywhere in the world; street lights were turned on by 7.00pm illuminating the estate up till the early hours of 7.00am. You could stand on end and see what is happening at a far end as far as 1000meters. Clean potable water was flowing in different home
The internal security arrangements put in place by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) was near perfect. Rules and regulations set by FHA were strictly enforced by their security operatives and compliance level by the residents was commendable. The FHA management were quick to eject anyone who was an illegal occupant or violators of the set rules.
As years passed by, different elements and all manners of people made their way into the estate.
The greatest undoing was the relocation of the FHA headquarters from Festac Town to Abuja. This made enforcement of rules and regulations so weak and exposed the estate to all manners of illegalities.
On the issue of the recent demolition exercise from 1st gate to 3rd gate along 2nd Avenue, a lot of false stories have been told.
The said area was allocated to different individuals and organisations around 2003. It used to be referred to as buffer zone as it shielded Festac Town from the Badagry expressway and a collection point for the storm water along 2nd Avenue. The Festival Town Residents Association (FTRA) protested this allocation on the grounds that the storm water channels will be blocked and there might be flooding whenever it rained.
Eventually the issue became a subject of litigation. FTRA sued FHA and the allottees sought to be joined in the suit. After about two years of legal tussle, a truce was reached between FTRA, FHA and the allottees. The resolution was taken to the court before Justice Adesanya in 2005 who pronounced the resolution a consent judgement.
Most paramount in resolution was that FHA must dredge an 18-metres wide canal in between the Festac axis and the Badagry expressway and link it with the major canal at First Gate Mile 2. Thereafter, a coordinated development could take place on the area with the 2nd Avenue axis being the residential area and the Badagry expressway axis being the commercial area. Before this was done, all manners of illegal occupants had encroached on the buffer zone area making it difficult for FHA to execute the court judgement.
Over the years, FHA had served notices to the occupants to vacate the area but they did not bulge. Up till the moment the final demolition notice expired, no building approval had been given by FHA to any of the occupants of the land.
In a bid to relocate the major occupants who were mechanics and market people, FHA gave 2.1 hectares of land to the mechanics at 6th Avenue area of the Estate as Mechanic Village. Another 2.2 hectares of land was given to the market people for market people at 23/402 Roads.
Some of the market people at the 2nd gate axis relocated whole some stayed back, some even maintained the two. All these allocations were done through the Amuwo Odofin Local Government.
The mechanics started to sand fill the land given to them at one point with the intention of relocating there but they stopped abruptly for reason not quite clear to anyone. The local government at a point too advertised the sale of forms for the market at 6th Avenue which was purchased at the rate of N2000 then around year 2005 or thereabout. Later the move was also jettisoned.
FHA later allocated a portion of land to Amuwo Odofin Local Government along 2nd Avenue 2nd Gate area for the purpose of building a secretariat but the local government entered into partnership with a private business man to build a shopping complex on the land negating the purpose of which the land was allocated.
The current place where Amuwo Odofin office is situated was allocated to the local government as Health Centre hence the reason FHA gave them the 2nd gate.
It is understandable that the demolition exercise carried out by FHA on 1st gate to 3rd gate along 2nd Avenue has come with some sympathy, pity and emotions. The residents association has had a meeting with the FHA to see how the allocations given earlier to the affected people can be recovered and the possibility of resettling them as quickly as possible.
We sympathize with the allottees of the 1st to 3rd gate axis that have over the years been denied access to their land. At this point any allottee who fails to utilise the land for the purpose of which they were allocated should face strict sanction of revocation.
