The Lagos State Government has directed traders operating illegal markets at Cele Bus Stop, along the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, to vacate the area immediately.
The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, issued the order on Wednesday during an inspection of the System 6C Cele-Ilasa drainage channel.
Wahab explained that numerous complaints about illegal activities around the System 6C channel had been received from residents in the area over the past year, prompting the inspection.
“Activities such as trading and construction of shanties under the Cele Pedestrian bridge as well as under the bridge harbouring illegal market, Abattoir and criminals living in shanties on System 6c, Odo Ashimawu cannot continue; enforcement team were earlier deployed to do a reconnaissance and they came with a feedback,” Kunle Adeshina, Director of Public Affairs at the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, quoted him as saying.
The commissioner added that traders had been served quit notices the previous week and that the removal operation must commence immediately.
Wahab stated that the clearing exercise, which will continue through the weekend, will cover the pedestrian bridge, the space beneath it, and the entire stretch of the drainage channel.
He emphasized that while the state government supports market operations, traders must operate within designated areas. He urged them to desist from erecting shanties on drainage channels, setbacks, curbs, and open spaces.
“It’s not enough to clear and cart silt from the drainage path but it’s about the human activities going around here; If you have a market illegally being operated around here and they dump their waste in canal, even if the government clean up the canals everyday, traders operating illegally would still continue dumping their wastes in the canals,” Wahab said.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment, Olakunle Rotimi-Akodu, noted that studies have revealed that refuse generated by traders is often dumped on roads. He expressed regret that many cleaned drainage channels are repeatedly clogged with waste.
Rotimi-Akodu urged residents to maintain drainage infrastructure, particularly tertiary channels, and reminded them that these facilities were provided using taxpayer funds
