NAN – The office of the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme Task Force, located at the old Toll Gate alongside the Ketu end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was on Saturday, June 27, 2015 demolished by the Lagos State Government.
Chairman of the State Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences, Hakeem Adedeji, told newsmen that the demolition was carried out on the orders of of the state government.
“The reason for the demolition is to the best knowledge of the governor because he was the one who directed that the buildings should be pulled down in the interest of the public,’’ he said.
According to Adedeji, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode must have issued the directive based on the abandonment of the building and its conversion to a hideout by miscreants.
“On getting here, we could not find any Federal Government official inside the building; rather, we found street urchins.
“There is a need to avoid that and that is why we believe that if the building is demolished, no one will use it as a hideout,’’ he said.
He also stated that the exercise should have been carried out since June 22 “but due process had to be followed before carrying out the demolition.”
“All these are geared towards ensuring that the rights of the citizens are not infringed upon,” Adedeji, a Superintendent of Police, said.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that earlier this year, former Governor Babatunde Fashola wrote to former President Goodluck Jonathan over the presence of the officials, who claimed to have been set up by the Presidency, to publicly state their functions.