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LAGOS: Policemen batter, brutalize displaced Otodo Gbame residents who want to see Ambode

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LAGOS: Policemen batter, brutalize displaced Otodo Gbame residents who want to see Ambode

The displaced residents of Otodo Gbame (a demolished waterfront community in Lekki, Lagos) got another vicious treatment by the Lagos State Government when they were allegedly attacked by men of the Lagos State Police Command.

According to reports, the displaced residents had thronged the office of the state Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode in their numbers demanding resettlement after they were displaced.

Carrying placards, mats and leaves, the army of displaced Otodo Gbame residents insisted they would not leave the premises until they were addressed by the governor with many of them lamenting that despite compiling a list of 30,000 residents affected by the demolition, the government had not resettled them.

True to their words, the army of protesters put their mats at the frontage of the governor’s office and refused to vacate the premises but were given a rough treatment by policemen who attacked them around 12.26 am on Thursday, while the protesters had slept.

In the process of the ensuing confusion, scores of women and children sustained varying degrees of injuries and 158 protesters were arrested by policemen who were assisted by other operatives, including officials of the Lagos State Task Force on Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit.

Read also: OTODO GBAME: Lagos govt leaves an open wound that is refusing to heal months after

Reacting to the treatment meted out to the displaced residents, Mrs. Bimbo Osobe, a community woman leader of Otodo Gbame said; “When we first got to Alausa, we were attacked by policemen who used tear gas on us. Later, we were addressed by some of the government officials. We told them we would like our governor to address us since we have got series of unfulfilled promises from government officials. They left and told us that they were going back to give the governor our message. We waited and decided to sleep.

“At about 12am, the streetlights were switched off. We sat in the darkness, singing Christian songs. At about 12.20am, policemen came in three Black Marias. They chased and beat us. They arrested both men and women. Then one of them said they should leave the women. A pregnant woman was arrested alongside five other women.

“After we were thrown out of Alausa, the policemen came after us till we got to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and crossed to the other side of the road. We were there until it started raining around 2am. We stood inside the rain with our children as we had no alternative.”

Three days ago, Amnesty International called on government to halt its violent campaign of demolitions and forced evictions of waterfront communities in Lagos State which it said had so far left more than 30,000 people homeless and eleven dead.

Its new report, The Human Cost of a Megacity: Forced Evictions of the Urban Poor in Lagos, details repeated forced evictions of the Otodo-Gbame and Ilubirin communities carried out since March 2016.

Between November 2016 and April 2017, Lagos state authorities forcibly and violently evicted more than 30,000 residents from the Otodo-Gbame community.
Ripples Nigeria had undertaken a special investigation on the impact of the forced evictions, detailing the tales of agony and the plight of the evictees.

 

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  1. Solomon Afolayan

    November 17, 2017 at 12:27 pm

    Police are very good in that aspect, human right is not in their dictionary…they are to enforce law, but when they carry out their so called duty, they will forget that they are also bind under the same law…

    https://www.eaglesnewsmedia.com/2017/11/photo-kate-henshaw-flaunts-her-6-packs.html?m=1

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