POWA Shopping Complex: Lagos Denies Involvement in Demolition

Kehinde Adeleye

The Lagos State Government has refuted any involvement in the Ikeja computer village commercial complex demolition that took place at the Police Officers Wives Association.

The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso in a statement said that , “The structure is owned by POWA, which ordered its demolition.”

He accused unnamed “opportunistic ethnic chauvinists” of spreading “fake news that Lagos State Government is demolishing Computer Village.”

“Those circulating the fake news are opportunistic ethnic chauvinists who will always relish in vacuous propaganda that can fuel their fiendish mission; they will always fail in dividing Lagosians,” Omotoso declared.

Controversy erupted around the dismantling of the POWA building in Computer Village, a thriving technological district.

In a statement released on Saturday, Police Force Public Relations Officer Muyiwa Adejobi said that the NPF had received a plethora of questions on the impending demolition of the POWA Shopping Complex in Ikeja.

Adejobi noted that the decision “is to enable the Force to commence immediate construction of a modern shopping complex on the same land.”

According to Adejobi, the decision to demolish and reconstruct the complex was “predicated on the fact that professional opinion indicates that the structure as it is constitutes a looming environmental hazard.”

The FPRO added that the “site is prone to flooding and may be susceptible to sudden collapse, hence the need for immediate landscaping and reconstruction.”

However, addressing the issue, Omotoso noted that “Lagos State Government has nothing to do with the demolition at Computer Village in Ikeja,” as “the structure is owned by POWA, which ordered its demolition.”