How I lost my house in Ajao Estate to FAAN demolition exercise –Abugu

Former editor of the Guardian, Deputy MD of New Telegraph Newspapers, Felix Oguejiofor Abugu, says his house located in Ajao Estate, valued at N70 million was demolished in the early morning demolition of houses carried out at the weekend by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

The house which stood on a plot of land was bought 12 years ago from the Baale Adejumolu family of Isolo, and located within the Runview/Mercy Estate owned by FAAN, some five kilometers to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMA), Ikeja, Lagos.

In an interview with reporters in Lagos, Mr. Abugu, a veteran of over three decades in journalism and MD/Editor-in-Chief of AbeyaNews online, said: “I am a distraught land owner here and my family is on the street right now, but let’s be clear about one thing: neither the government of Lagos nor its agencies had anything to do with the demolitions per se.

“The land belongs to FAAN and it simply paid for the services of the concerned agency of Lagos to demolish our houses and, I must add, unjustifiably. So, away with the drivel about Lagos targeting anyone or group!”

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Narrating his ordeal, Abugu further disclosed: “Every single landlord in what was once known as RICHFIELD ESTATE Estate before it changed to RUNVIEW/MERCY ESTATE Estate after ownership of the real Estate reverted to FAAN, bought their land from the Adejumolu family.

“I bought mine in September 2011. Some bought much earlier. But all of us bought from the Adejumolu family on the basis of a court judgment shown to each and every buyer by the family, indicating that the land belonged to the family.

“However, ownership of the land reverted to FAAN after another court ruling whereupon FAAN took over the Estate and renamed it RUNVIEW/MERCY ESTATE and invited landlords to come for ownership regularisation’.

“Even those of us from the side that has now been destroyed were invited but were later denied the privilege of regularizations for reasons that were never clear.

“Indeed, I believe that the reasons for this wicked demolition of our property that some bought 15-20 years back and subsequent displacement of our families and disruption of our lives, are as untenable as they are varied.

“The truth is that FAAN had no justifiable reasons to demolish our property. If it regularized houses even across the street, what was so offensive about our side of the street that they had to destroy our houses at a time like this and send our families out on the streets?”

Lamenting the situation as it affects his family, Abugu said: “How does one handle this type of situation? This is a property that one put in practically everything one had to be able to develop and live with one’s family and now gbum! and it is gone, just in one hour of merciless destruction! I just don’t know what to do.”

A report quoted a reliable FAAN sources to have given several reasons that accounted for the demolition of the 13 or so residential houses that fenced off an undeveloped part of the FAAN land (mainly vegetable farms) from the Runview Estate.