Please, sir, this is an open appeal to you to come and save not only my life but that of your subjects who live at the Kunle Ogedengbe axis of the famous Magodo Phase 1 Estate in Lagos, just opposite your office.
I am sure you know the place very well, because you had come in to save us the other time a Supreme Court judgment was given and we were all asked to “park out.”
This time, it is one developer that they said is your friend o. He has brought in heavy machinery to excavate a natural cliff that the Estate Exco is saying will turn the mud being pulled out to cause a huge mudslide “if rain falls for just one hour” and cover over 50 houses and possibly kill over 200 of your loyal voters who live down in that gully.
The developer said he has all the necessary approvals, but has failed to show them. The estate management believes that what he is doing is illegal, but he said that he has the permits and comes to work with tonnes of policemen and officials from one of your parastatals.
All attempts to get a compromise have failed, and the excavation work is going on in earnest, destroying the natural habitat, risking surrounding buildings, weakening infrastructure, including roads and portending grave danger to our lives, including me, whose bedroom opens up to the site.
Your Excellency, I am making this very strong appeal to you because your people seem to have turned a deaf ear or may have been compromised, especially by the number of trucks with LASG labels on them that come to “protect” the workers as they dig our graves.
Your Excellency, it is not that one that after I have died under a huge mudslide – which is looking inevitable like this, that you will now run to the site and wear crash helmet and hold my wife hand and say “he was a good guy, he was part of us, we will set up a panel to look at the immediate cause of this tragedy,” and then give her compensation that she will now go and use to marry a new husband.
That one, me, I will do Old Roger for you. You know Old Roger in that nursery rhyme who rose up to give someone a knock? That is exactly what I will do. I will rise up and give you a knock, I swear.
This is the time to act o, they want to kill not only me but over 200 of us on that street with this their construction that the exco have said, has no single permit or approval. Helpppp.
Leave a comment