Wale Jagun
In a daring and bold move, the new Executive Chairman, Amuwa -Odofin Local Government, Prince Lanre Sanusi (PLS), has embarked on bringing sanity back to the Festac Town part of his council by removing and clearing illegal structures, roadside shanties, and indiscriminate parking on pedestrian walkways.
According to Sanusi, the exercise was the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu and the THEMES Plus Agenda of Governor Babajide Sanwo – Olu. It is also to fulfill his electoral pledge to residents that demanded bringing sanity back to the area.
The exercise which was personally led by Prince Sanusi, in collaboration with LASTMA, KAI Brigade, the Nigeria Police Force, Lagos State Environmental Taskforce, and the Amuwo-Odofin Environmental Taskforce, took place on Tuesday, August 19.
The teams moved across key areas — from 2nd Avenue through 1st Avenue, down 22 Road and up to 41 Road, where illegal structures, roadside shanties, and indiscriminate parking on pedestrian walkways were cleared. Vehicles obstructing free movement were also impounded in line with existing environmental and traffic laws.
“This initiative is in line with the vision of the Lagos State Governor, His Excellency, Mr Babajide Olushola Sanwo-Olu, and Renewed Hope Agenda as regards the environmental cleanup of Lagos and by extension Amuwo Odofin Local Government.
“In addition to that, while we were doing our campaign, I will tell you for free that 99.9% of the requests from the people of Amuwo Odofin is just two things. One, is that roads are extremely bad and our environment are dirty and with us as the leaders of this local government: I have my vice chairman here, I have the leader of the house, I have the council manager, the council engineer and we have all decided in working together to bring back the sanity of Festac and Amuwo Odofin at large.”
The ebullient council boss furthered, “FESTAC used to be the best estate in the entire West Africa and in the whole of Africa and suddenly, I don’t know how we got here and Festac is what it is today, but we are determined in bringing back the sanity and the glory of FESTAC and FESTAC77.”
While Sanusi thanked the President for his emergence as the council chairman, he also assured that the exercise will be sustained.
“I want to thank the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu for giving me the opportunity to become the Local Government chairman. Also, I appreciate Governor, Deputy Governor, and the party chairman for giving us the privilege to serve and we are doing this to the glory of God.
“It is good to do this and also good to sustain it. For example, we have seen clearly based on research and what we have seen, the people (landlords and property owners), you see on this axis and everyone you see there and the security is because of cheap labour. They hired persons that they don’t even know. They don’t know where they come from, their names or address. They hired them to be security, hence, the reason why you see that all our manholes in FESTAC are gone and we would bring back security In FESTAC.
“So, what we intend to do to sustain what we have started is, one, making sure that every security man in FESTAC are going to be uniformed men that would be registered at the local government and we would pay them at the local government. We would get re -imbursed from the business owners here in FESTAC.
“If there is anybody that wants to bring back all these nuisance, all (that the people) have to do is to call us and we will be here to sustain what we have started,” Prince Sanusi said.
The council boss acknowledged the support of residents and pleaded for their continuous support for his administration.
“The feedback we have been getting while we are here is that everyone is happy. The people in the estates from First Avenue, Ward K and beyond are happy. When you go on social media, you would see that everyone is happy and they are happy that indeed we are bringing back the glory of FESTAC and what we are doing is what the people want.
“They should continue to cooperate with us and by extension, they would see what we would do in the next four years and 2027 is around the corner and my father (President Bola Tinubu), is coming back to be the President and I want them (residents) to come out en mass to support him.
“We have started the voter’s registration to get their PVC and get ready to vote my leader and my father, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President once again and you can see what he has started and the economy is stabilized and you can see the float of dollar and it has been stabilized. You can see that everything is working and we see the manifestation.
“You can see there is fuel and everything is working and within a short period of time we will see the manifestation of what he has been doing.”
