By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
Kogi State Environmental Special Enforcement Unit of the Ministry of Environment on Wednesday knocked down illegal structures at the Post area on Murtala Mohammed, Lokoja, the state capital.
Our correspondent who visited the area reports that operatives of the unit,accompanied by heavily armed police officers, were seen pulling down the illegal structures, shanties, kiosks and shops.
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Some owners of the illegal structures were seen hurriedly parking their products to avoid being demolished with the structures marked for the exercise while others remained helpless as their structures were being brought down.
Some of them who spoke with our correspondent described the exercise as sudden, adding that there was no adequate notice from government for them to vacate the area.
Commenting on the exercise, the Commissioner for Environment, Mr.Omofaye Victor, explained that the exercise became imperative to allow free flow of traffic and security in the area.
He described as unacceptable, a development whereby activities of illegal artisans, food vendors and others in the area who littered the entire area with refuse and waste materials, began to consist eye-saw.
He said, “Illegal business operators like cloth sellers, food/fruits vendors and others were served a seven-day ‘Removal Notice’ by the state government to remove their property and vacate the entire street, the notice expired last week.”
Mr.Victor ,therefore, implored all illegal occupants on any of government lands/property to vacate them warning that it would no longer going to be business as usual across the state.
The Reporters gathers that after the expiration of the removal order, the state government gave illegal squatters, additional eight days grace to vacate the entire area before embarking on the cleanup exercise.
The online publication further learnt that the exercise was also aimed at clamping down on criminal elements whose activities have bern disturbing the life of law-abiding residents in the area.
