Residents, business owners groan over Magodo gates partial closure
Residents, business owners groan over Magodo gates partial closure
Residents and business owners have lamented missing their various appointments because of the partial closure of the Magodo Phase 2 Estate gates on the first working day of 2022.
The victims were seen expressing their grievances as they flooded the two gates leading in and out of the estate.
A business owner, Tope Akinwashola, who was among the stranded victims at one of the gates, lamented spending hours at the gate before gaining entry, adding that he had missed his appointment for the day.
He said, “I am not a resident of Magodo but I have been working in the estate for the past five years. I don’t know what transpired between the association and whoever but I have nothing to say other than to abide by their rules and regulations.
“I have been at the gate for the past one hour 30 minutes. If there is a disagreement, people need to sit down to settle whatever caused the disagreement so that there would be peace at the end of the day.
“This is the second time they are closing the gates and I am supposed to be on the Island around 9.30am but it is no longer possible. I already told the people I am to meet about the situation of things. My time and energy have been wasted and I am not happy about it.”
Another stranded victim, a shuttle driver, David Luke, said he could not gain entry into the estate after waiting at the gate for two hours, adding that he had lost money in terms of customer patronage due to the gate closure.
Luke said, “I have been at the gate for two hours. I have not been able to do my business as a shuttle driver. I have been here since 8am and this is 10.22am but I am yet to gain entry.
“Normally, I would have made about N4000 from conveying passengers to their various destinations in the estate.”
A resident, Olawunmi Owonikoko, said the residents needed assurance from the Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, adding, “We don’t have to wait for them to strike before doing anything.”
Our correspondent gathered that the gates were closed around 6am to protest the continuous presence of policemen in the estate.
Intermittently, a section of the gates around the Shangisha area of Magodo Phase 2 was opened to grant entry to stranded victims and for vehicular movements to avoid a backlog of traffic in and outside the estate.
The policemen were said to have recently accompanied suspected land grabbers and members of a family who had planned to demolish property in the estate to execute a Supreme Court judgment.
The group were said to have attempted invading the estate with a bulldozer when the estate management shut the gates to prevent entry.
It was learnt that it took the intervention of the Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu before the gates were reopened as the Inspector-General of Police, Baba Usman, promised to withdraw the policemen.
Speaking with our correspondent, the Chairman of the estate, Bajo Osinubi, said the policemen had remained in the estate despite Sanwo-Olu’s intervention, adding that residents had been living in fear as the policemen move around with their weapons.
However, the Lagos State Government had described the invasion as unwarranted and vowed to prosecute those involved in the invasion.
Also, the Legal Adviser, Magodo Residents Association, Tunji Abdulhameed, while countering the judgment claim influencing the actions of the invaders, said there was no specification to the area, property, location of the plots of land in the judgment they got in 1993.
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