Some residents of Okun Ajah in Eti-Osa Local Council of Lagos State have cried out over an alleged ethnic bias and favouritism in the planned re-routing of the Lagos Calabar Coastal Highway in the community, urging the Federal Government not to spare law-breakers at their expense.

The residents, who spoke on the issue, expressed serious concerns that some rich property owners from a certain region of the country who had encroached on the coastal road master plan have induced some top government officials to ensure that the re-routing plan does not affect them.

They appealed to President Bola Tinubu and Minister of Works, David Umahi, to urgently come to their aid, lamenting that law-abiding property owners with proper titles outside of the coastal road route are now at the mercy of having their property demolished.

One of the residents, Bola Akingbade, said: “We are really worried about what is going on here in Okun Ajah. Many of the landowners here avoided the coastal road areas and have since perfected their titles with the Lagos State government. We knew that a day would come when the government would decide to reactivate the coastal road master plan. So, we clearly avoided that axis.

“Unfortunately, those that deliberately purchased and built their property along the coastal road are now making a mockery of us because some unscrupulous government officials have collected huge bribes from them to ensure that their houses are not affected by the ongoing demolition of illegal structures on the coastal roads.”

Another resident, David Abiola, who condemned what he described as a daring act of impunity, said the government must not allow the corruption going on with the rerouting plan to stand as it would further encourage others to flaunt government directives.

He said: “We are trying to let the government know that when they set rules, people who flaunt them should be punished. By not punishing these lawbreakers, the government will be setting a bad precedent.”

“Those of us who avoided the coastal road areas have now become a laughing stock because some corrupt officials have collected money from rich individuals, mostly from certain parts of the country.”

An indigene of the town, Yusuf Odunuga, said: “Since we got the excision for this village in 2006 under the then Governor Bola Tinubu, now President of Nigeria, there was an alignment for coastal road and it was gazetted. Everybody in the town knows that there is a coastal road alignment but some people went ahead to build on some parts of the alignment thinking that the government will not come and construct the road in the future.”

Odunuga decried that it is unjust and confusing as those who are affected now have valid documents from the government, while those who built on the coastal road do not.

A member of the Baale in Council of Okun Ajah, Kazeem Shittu, also called on the minister to revert to the alignment of the coastal road to douse the tension in the town.

Also, the Akogun on Okun Ajah, Saeed Olukosi, appealed to Umahi to return to the gazetted alignment, noting that rerouting the road is like punishing those who observed and followed the law to favour lawbreakers.