Last week, the demolition machines of the Lagos State Government moved into Ogudu Ori-Oke in Kosofe Local Government Area of the state. After days of operation, which climaxed last Friday, dozens of houses, including schools and churches, were reduced to smithereens while wailing and crying by those affected rented the air and reverberated to as far as the neighbouring Ojota.

This is not the first term such exercise would take place in the Lagos suburb. In fact, few months after the inception of the current administration of Babatunde Raji Fashola, demolition of illegal structures to reclaim the state's master plan and establish its new status as mega city has been a recurrent decimal. Essentially, structures are either demolished for being sited on drainage channel or they go down for lack of approval from the relevant authorities. From Bariga to Agege, Costain to Lagos Island, Oyingbo to Ajegunle Apapa, the demolition machines have left painful marks on the terrain.

But Ori-Oke Ogudu operation has once again thrown up the potpourri of reactions that occasionally trail the demolition exercise. The central arguments have always had to do with the rapidity with which the exercise is being conducted and the anguish and displacement that normally follow.

Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC), an NGO, raised the tempo of the argument last week Friday over the Ogudu demolition as the NGO condemned the exercise outright, vowing to lead the residents in a protest march to the Governor's Office this week.

The Executive Director of SERAC, Mr. Felix Morka, while addressing reporters at the scene, described the demolition as barbaric, saying, "there is no reason for a government to render people homeless without making alternatives".

Morka called on Governor Fashola to order the immediate stoppage of demolition exercise in the area, just as he also made a case for the immediate arrangement for relocation of the affected residents.

"The governor should discontinue these demolitions and he should as well look for a way of relocating those people whose houses had been demolished," he said.

On that Friday, residents numbering up to about 300 carried placards and chanted protest songs amidst tears and sobbing. They claimed that the exercise came when they never expected it because no notification was given to them.

"We were not expecting something like this; we were in our classes writing exams when they just came with bulldozers and they asked us to vacate the school that they are demolishing it. At least, we expect them to have given us notice before coming to pull our school down" said Olushola Olubiyo, a student of Sceptre Comprehensive College, Ogudu.

It was gathered that the proprietor of school was already lying critically ill in a hospital as a result of the demolition. He was said to have gone into coma when the information got to him that his school had been overwhelmed by caterpillar.

Also, the Founding Pastor of City of Refuge Ministries International, Bishop Oscar Ossai, whose church was affected, maintained that he was taken aback by the exercise, as he had already acquired every document pertaining to the land from the state government.

He accused the government of selectivity in the demolition exercise, claiming that some houses were intentionally left out.

"Some buildings are still standing on their foundations, and from the look of things, those buildings would not be touched. Why would a governor not be considerate in doing this kind of a thing? He has demolished many houses; he still ordered them to demolish schools and churches, this is unfair. We voted him and he never told us he was going to pay us back this way," Ossai lamented.

Pastor Tunde Tolad, who claimed to be member of Oke Tude Church situated around the area, added: "I am highly disappointed with what I am seeing. How would people just come and start marking houses and say they would demolish them? Initially, when they came to look at some houses here, the landlords gathered and they went to Alausa and met with the governor and they promised they would not get to our side, but what they said then was only a deceit; now they are bringing down our houses. This is absolute nonsense. Where does Fashola want us to relocate to now? He is always saying that 'Eko o ni baje' (Eko will never collapse), but Eko is already devastated, and he is the one destroying Eko by himself."

This type of lamentation is a common thing when the bulldozers move into any neighbourhood, but despite that, the government seems unperturbed in its determination to make the state wholesome.

Reacting to the spectre of demolitions going on in the state, the Chairman of the House of Assembly Committee on Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mufutau Egberongbe, maintained that the government would continue to bring down all structures that are illegally constructed and all those ones erected on drainage channels.

His words: "Demolition of shanties and illegal structures would go on in Lagos as long as residents continue to contravene the State Land Use Laws by erecting buildings in places that are illegal. Many Lagosians have taken delight in erecting structures, especially on drainage channels."

He maintained that when houses are erected on drainage channels, they create serious problem for easy passage of erosion that could result in flooding which could put other residents in a state of perpetual dilemma, especially once it rains.

"It is not that the government derives any pleasure in demolishing people's houses, but at the same time it cannot afford to watch its citizens perish as a result of building collapse. We would prefer people to be mere homeless rather than die in wreckage of collapsed buildings," he insisted.

The lawmaker also reiterated that since the state is aiming to be a mega city, such dream could never be attained when people continue to erect buildings in places that are not meant for such structures.

Sharing the same sentiment with Egberongbe, Mr. Sam Adeniyi, a businessman residing in Surulere, stated that those faulting Fashola's government on its demolition policy are demonstrating stark ignorance of what the mega city should look like. He also maintained that if the demolition exercise were not conducted now, in the next five years, the state would have collapsed, throwing it into a state of confusion as a result of lawlessness.

"There is too much lawlessness in Lagos. It is here people will be blocking public roads with their vehicles not minding the inconvenience it is causing other road users," he added.