A lawmaker, Mr Abiodun Tobun, has urged slum and shanty dwellers in Lagos to cooperate with the state government in its efforts to transform the affected areas.
Tobun, the Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Works and Infrastructure, said on Thursday that the government was committed to transforming the state into a megacity.
The residents have been protesting the government’s planned demolition of all slums and shanties on waterfronts in the state in a bid to transform the affected areas.
Tobun told NAN that the state’s mega city dream would require the elimination of slums and shanties.
“We have been working on achieving the millennium goals since 2000. This is 2016, and we have been working on making Lagos a mega city. The government needs encouragement in so many areas.
“Most of the people living on waterfronts are not fishermen.
“Those living in slums defecate on water, urinate on water, throw wastes on water, rear their children there and do everything inside water.
“For any child to grow in that kind of environment, the psyche of such a child will be different from those of others raised in a more sublime environment.
“This kind of place harbours criminals; it destroys the aesthetic values of the state; it encourages diseases,’’ the legislator said.
He added that the environmental impacts and security threats of the places were numerous.
“Since people are living there illegally, do we now have to legalise illegality?
“I sympathise with the people living on the waterfronts but they cannot be living in these places till eternity. It is not ideal,” he said.
According to him, residents of the slums can get land cheap in Epe and Ikorodu and some other parts of the state, where they can live a normal life.
Tobun decried disregard for law and order by some of the residents of the state.
“It is unfortunate that what is bad and unlawful are the things some people like doing.
“ People like trading on highways against the law. People like riding on the rooftops of moving train in spite of warnings against such.
“ People are told not to drive against traffic but this is the thing they keep doing.”
The lawmaker also decried migration into Lagos by people from other states without any hope of accommodation and job.
“Must they leave their communities to come and roam aimlessly in Lagos?
“Many abandoned their fathers’ houses to live under bridges and slums in Lagos.
“These are men and women who could have stayed back in their villages to engage in farming and make a success in life.
“Many of these people join criminal groups; some of them had been caught and killed, whereas their colleagues, who engaged in farming in the villages have progressed,” he said.
He, however, appealed that the state government should re-open discussion with the slum dwellers on the need to provide them with resettlement centres on compassionate ground.