Land grabbers charge canal bank squatters monthly rent

By Abolaji Adebayo, Edith Igbokwe and Olushola Okewole

A thriving business of renting out the waterfront of canals in Oshodi, Isolo and Ejigbo to indigent home seekers by land grabbers is frustrating the efforts of the Lagos State Government to secure waterfronts against flood casualties.

The increasing cases of illegal settlement on the banks of the canals are also scaring residents in the built up areas as they feel exposed to security breaches and robbery attacks.

Many of these shanties dot the long stretch of waterfront abutting the Oke-Afa canal.

The Oke Afa canal originally collects its waters from Lawal Street and Boundary road areas of Shasha where it begins its journey to the Badagry Creek. It gains strength and widens by collecting more waters from Ewutuntun and Ladipo streams in isolo before creating a passage at Oke- Afa that snakes through The Festival Of Arts & Culture, FESTAC village to the creek.

Squatters on the banks of the canal who spoke to Echonews blamed their lot on the worsening economic situation in the country that rendered them too indigent to secure habitable accommodation in the city.

They alleged that land speculators gave them the land to build their shacks on the condition that they pay monthly rents.

When ECHONEWS visited the occupants of the shanties at the Canoe Bridge section of the canal and asked them to confirm the legality of their homes, they confessed that they had no document from the government.

They disclosed to our correspondent that a particular person who claims to be a land owner is their landlord and collects N3,000 from each of them as monthly rent.

Efforts of Echonews reporters to track the “landlord” to his abode to clarify his status was not successful.

A squatter, Isaac Egye from Nasarawa State said the area is a rented space where they stay because of lack of financial capacity to get befitting apartment.

He said the major challenge of the place is the flood, noting that they always lost their belongings to flood when it rained.

According to him, they resorted to open defecation into the canal while using a makeshift bathroom or pay N50 to use nearby commercial bathroom and toilet.

He claimed that they paid N3,000 monthly to a certain caretaker who usually came around to collect the money from them.

Another occupant of the space named Anthony said they were in danger together with their children as overflow of the canal remained their major problem.

He noted that since 2014 when it was last done, the canal has not been dredged as promised by the government, the situation which has been causing the persistent flood.

A woman who does not want her name in print narrated her ordeal, saying she got to the place due to financial incapability to secure another apartment when she and her husband were evicted from their former apartment after it was sold to another owner.

She said she opted for the canal side in 2016 to avoid the embarrassment of staying with somebody with her children.

She said: “Many people believe that people living in this kind of place are the set of people who don’t have home or who come directly from their home town to stay here, but it is not so, many of us here were sent out from where we were first living and the financial strength to get a new house is not there yet.

“And instead of staying with somebody with children we decided to manage life here for a while, it is not permanent. So, it is landlord and financial issue that have brought many here.”

But homeowners and tenants in the area are terrified by the threat posed to security by the squatters. Their efforts to push the squatters to go have hit the brick wall.

The Chairman of Last Building Community Development Association (CDA), Canoe Canal Area, Isolo, Apostle Ossey, said all efforts by the community to discourage the people from residing in the place have been futile.

He noted that the local government has intervened but nothing happened; instead, the occupants of the place kept increasing.

He alleged that the indigenes were the one giving the land to the people and collecting money from them, saying this gave the squatters boldness to challenge the CDA when trying to talk to them.

He said the major concern of the community about the place is that many might be using the place as hideout after perpetrating criminal activities.

A similar settlement was noticed at Aviation Estate, Mafoluku Oshodi where shanties were occupied by squatters.

The place, named Ghetto Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3, is said to have been in existence for more than 15 years though it was gathered that some of the occupants bought a piece of land there at the rate of N10,000 and built their shanties in which they live while some rented them out for living.

One of their leaders, Muyiwa Ayankunle explained that it was never their choice to settle in a small crude shelter as their dwelling place but lack of job and finance condemned most of them to the condition they found themselves.

The squatters bemoan their financial fate and shrug their shoulders to hostile comments from people asking them to go back home if they can’t make ends meet in the city.

A woman who spoke to Echonews said:” Though many people pass by and say all sorts of things like ‘And this one will tell their people in the village that they are in Lagos’ among many  “pull him down”;statements, but we too are not happy about it and we need to keep struggling through it to breakthrough; who do we run to for help?”

The Lagos State Government is worried that the continuous presence of the squatters might lead to crisis If flooding happens and has chosen advocacy to discourage the squatters.

The Public Relations Officer (PRO), Lagos State Ministry of Environment, Mr. Kunle Adeshina told ECHONEWS that government’s various efforts were frustrated.

“We all know that those living in shanties do not and cannot have government backing. The Lagos state Government has tried on many occasions to evict them from the place but the efforts were frustrated. I personally pass through the canal at canoe area and see the people living in shanties.

“Apart from the possibility of being a threat to the community, their own lives are also at risk. I personally discover that majority of those occupying the place do not have any means of livelihood; they don’t have certificate to work neither do they learn any vocation through which they can get money. Those are the one who resort to illegal means of getting money such as robbery and all that.

“What the government is trying to do now is to deploy moral suasion to control the situation, persuading them on the danger of their living at bank of the canal.” Adeshina said.