00:00In the heart of Ooronshoki, where laughter once mingled with the harm of daily life,
00:05a profound sorrow now blankets the community.
00:08Homes that sheltered dreams, places of worship that nurtured hope,
00:12and shops that sustained livelihoods have been reduced to rubbers.
00:17Under the cold weight of bulldozers in the dead of the night,
00:21the tearful faces, strained voices, and unheard pleas of the people echoes through the ruins.
00:28A haunting testament to their pain.
00:32They speak of betrayal of forces beyond their grasp,
00:35and a government that denies responsibility while their world crumbles.
00:41The promise of compensation rings all a cruel marriage in the face of their homelessness and despair.
00:48This is not just a story of loss.
00:51It is a cry for help, a desperate call for justice and compassion
00:56to reach those left helpless and alone.
01:00We consider that there were kind of a demolition here.
01:04What actually happened here?
01:06The demolition came, that was Saturday, Sunday nights.
01:10They came around in the night.
01:11Some people are still sleeping.
01:13You can see some families, they are not feeling fine.
01:15They have one or two challenges.
01:16They just came, start destroying home.
01:18Many people are homeless as we speak.
01:21Many people, there is no place.
01:23Even as I speak, the place I am standing, the house they demonized yesterday.
01:27They did not allow some of them to pick their load.
01:28They want to even demonize them inside, demonize them inside their house with the load.
01:32When they are pre-written, you know, maybe message or letter or whatever given to the people
01:37to ever quit this place.
01:39Their gift is not that they did not tell them the precisely time they are coming to demonize
01:44the house.
01:44How long, can you remember the time frame maybe when the letters came?
01:48No, the news going on that some people said even the urban knows something about it.
01:52Some people said they just came without no proper information.
01:55Okay, we also had a report that some of the people whose houses have been demolished
02:01have been compensated.
02:02Can you confirm, did you know anyone in this?
02:05Precisely, I don't think so.
02:07Because many of the houses, some of them is their father that they have already laid.
02:12Some of them is their children that is looking out of the house.
02:15Some of them are not even in Nigeria.
02:16I don't think so.
02:18It's only that upstairs you have seen precisely that we are hearing the rumors that they will
02:22compensate them, give them something.
02:24Because the person has something guaranteed that qualifies the apps.
02:28So, other people who do not have maybe...
02:31You know, to get C of O is not a 10-nera money.
02:35So, many people have been residing in this place.
02:37It's not 20 years ago.
02:38It's not 30 years ago without those things.
02:41So, it's a bit complicated.
02:42It's a bit complicated.
02:43As we speak right now, many people, they are selling their mattresses.
02:46They are selling their teeth.
02:47They are homeless.
02:49Some people, they haven't cooked that day before yesterday.
02:51They have not even eaten.
02:52So, it's very terrible.
02:54Even many people now, they are looking for assets.
02:56So, they don't even have the cash, the money right away to rent another house.
03:00Looking at a time like this where the economic situation of Nigeria is so, nothing to write
03:04home about and, you know, facing this kind of situation, what will be your plea, you know,
03:09to the government and the people to come to your head, you know?
03:12Yes, precisely what the government can do right away, before everybody have already scattered.
03:19Many people have gone to many areas in Lagos like Ofadamoway, Ikoroduto, live right away.
03:24Many people have went to live with many of their family, relatives.
03:28Right away, people are not, the people that demonize their ass, most of them have gone out
03:31of a war, as we speak, most of them are not in a war.
03:33But what the government will do that we can look, that people will be happy about is that
03:38the government should really compensate them.
03:40If they can call a head, that means they call the landlord to give them something, maybe
03:45they can get information to their tenant.
03:46You can see everywhere is scattered now, everywhere you can see the demolition is not 10 hours,
03:51it's not 20 hours.
03:52They are even saying they are coming down to this place, as we speak now.
03:55Okay, before we leave, did they actually mention, maybe they want to erect maybe some buildings
04:01here, or a new power, or maybe a new power?
04:03What we heard that most of our tenants, most of our people, the landlords, some of them said
04:10they want to make new Oworu, they want to make it like Lekki.
04:14Yes, so you will see some places that will demonize, some places that will not demonize,
04:19so they want to make it as if we are in Lekki, New Lagos.
04:22This happened in the late hours of Saturday, that was around 10.
04:28So when they came in, the mobile police, they came in their numbers, so they started firing
04:34Tiagas, right from where they stopped the demolition, the first day they came.
04:44So they started, they started from there with the excavator.
04:49So since around 10, before they now get here, even they didn't even obey the court order.
04:56So you can see the court order number is written on this house.
05:02So this house was demolished early hours of Sunday morning.
05:09So very early it was demolished.
05:11According to the court that we had, we heard that the landlord association went to the state
05:16government at Al-Ausa.
05:17And when they came back, which was that, which was how the government had authorised this.
05:22So what exactly, or who exactly, can you see everything that is?
05:25So the government, they didn't really come out.
05:28They didn't come out.
05:29They have not been transparent.
05:31They didn't, despite all our shouting, going to House of Assembly, going to Governor's Office,
05:37everything was to no avail.
05:39But the major thing we, the major thing we, we were able to gather is that the king of
05:49Auloworo, he made it more difficult.
05:54They, he connived with the government, with what we had and what is on ground.
06:00He connived with the government officials to like, be able to do this.
06:07Okay.
06:08We had a meeting around last month with the king, right in the palace.
06:15So where the king and other House of Assembly members, like Oki or Okla, so they, they called
06:28all the landlords of Auloworo to address them that the demolition will go on, that the,
06:35the place we are, the place we are staying is an accusation land, which there is nothing
06:41to back, to back it up from the government that, okay, it's really an accusation land.
06:45And they are going to compensate the landlords.
06:49But there was nothing like...
06:51Sorry, to continue in there, about the compensation.
06:53We also had reports, I think, from last week, that people whose house were demolished
06:57have been compensated.
06:58How true is this?
06:59The compensation for me is, is a, is a fluke.
07:04And it was arranged.
07:06If you say arranging audio compensation, that's what I will just tell you.
07:10Because the, those people I saw on the internet, collecting the compensation, I don't even
07:20know them.
07:21What I know is that, it is some of their people, because if you look at it, the compensation
07:26was done inside palace.
07:27It was not even transparent.
07:29The compensation was not transparent.
07:31They just did it arranging.
07:33Like this, my dad's house now.
07:35This is a one-story building with four, four flats.
07:41Yes.
07:42He just finished, he just had his surgery, like two, three weeks ago.
07:48He was, he did, he did a surgery on his lower abdomen.
07:54So, before this happened.
07:57Thank you so much.
07:58This morning, as well, we had the court that they would have planned protests, you know,
08:05from the people of Moulashiki or this axis to, you know, protest and maybe, you know,
08:08disrupt these things.
08:09Yes.
08:10We, we also had the rumours about the protests that will be going to block the third mainland
08:17bridge.
08:18This is, which is fact and it might still happen.
08:21It might not be today because the rumours are all about, it might still happen, which
08:27because the demolition, as I speak, is still going on because the police officials as at
08:375 36, because I slept outside.
08:40I slept outside through the night.
08:43So the police officials, they have been outside since.
08:46Although some were stationed here 24 hours.
08:49So some came out.
08:51As, as early hours of today, patrolling all over the third mainland bridge, inside the
08:58Oguro axis.
08:59So they've been patrolling to monitor the protests.
09:02So.
09:03What would be your plea to the people of Nigeria to come to the mainland?
09:08What my plea to Nigerians is, we need to stop this demolition.
09:15This one, I won't say it's, it's no longer demolition, it's destruction.
09:20If you may, if I, if you may ask me, it's, I'll call it destruction to the masses, to the
09:25people of Nigeria.
09:26We don't, we don't, we are no longer free with the way I'm looking at it because they
09:32are, the progress of this demolition, it still continues.
09:36Nobody is safe.
09:37The way I'm looking at this, nobody is safe.
09:41When it comes to Lagos State, nobody is safe.
09:44As the dust settles over the shattered remains of Ouro-Shoki, the people's anguish lingers.
09:50A wound that no amount of silence can heal.
09:54Homeless, helpless and forsaken, they stand amidst the wreckage of their lives, pleading
10:00for someone to hear, act and care.
10:03The forces that tore down their homes may seem insurmountable, but the power of collective
10:09compassion is not.
10:11We cannot turn away from their cries or ignore their outrush hands.
10:16Let us amplify their voices, demand accountability, and extend the help they so desperately need.
10:24For the people of Ouro-Shoki, hope is fading, but will help comfort.
Comments