Owners of shops at Obehi Plaza in Computer Village came out on Monday with banners to protest the unfair sealing of the plaza by Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) officials in Lagos for three months.
In the videos FIJ saw, shop owners can be seen lamenting the effects of the plaza sealing in different languages, calling on Nigerians to help them restore their businesses.
“Please we’re crying for justice. They should all come and help us and unseal our plaza. Our plaza has been locked for over three months now and we’ve not been surviving,” one of the protesters said.
“There are wife and children we are feeding at home. Next month school will start, how will we pay for the fees?”
READ MORE: LASG, KAI Kill Livelihoods by Wrongfully Sealing 40 Shops in Lagos for 2 Months
Obehi Plaza was sealed on May 29 by KAI 0fficials who accused the shop owners of fighting their officials in an altercation that happened the previous Saturday when KAI attempted to arrest a street food hawker.
However, the shop owners at the plaza claimed that it was members of the plaza beside them that came into an altercation with KAI officials, and not theirs.
They were able to round up the people who fought the officials from the other plaza and handed them over to police. They were later released by KAI but the shops in Obehi Plaza remained sealed after KAI officials diverted the claims and insisted that the shop owners broke their seals.
The shop owners in a released statement sent to FIJ lamented the emotional, financial and health effects caused by the three-month closure of their businesses, since May 29, and appealed to Tokunbo Wahab, the Lagos State Commissioner of Environment, to unseal the shops, insisting that they were not the people who fought with KAI officials.
In a report FIJ published in July, Saliu (not real name), an ICT shop owner in Obehi, told FIJ that over 40 shops had been sealed for two months (at the time) with goods locked up and rotting away.
He said that they had gone to visit KAI at their office to resolve the issue, but they were told that the matter was in the hands of the Lagos Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.
FIJ spoke to Tomiwa (not real name), who sells inverter batteries and panels in one of the shops, on Tuesday, and he said he had not been able to access his shop since May 29.
“We’ve been going there (KAI office) to beg and beg and beg,” Ronald (not real name), a coordinator of the Obehi Plaza members, told FIJ on Tuesday.
“If it is money, tell us. This is three months now, we are family men feeding from this. Some of us are sick, some of us have relocated to their villages. We’ve been begging, please forgive us. The plaza that committed this offence has not been sealed, it was we the next door neighbours who were sealed.”
“We’re a new plaza. We just came in there this year, it hasn’t been up to six months. Now, out of those six months, they’ve collected three months in locking the place. There’s no one to see. The commissioner is nowhere to be found,” Ronald said.
When FIJ called and sent messages to Lagos Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and Honorable Tokunbo Wahab on Tuesday, they did not respond. They had yet to respond at press time.
The post VIDEO: Owners Protest Wrongful Sealing of 40 Lagos Shops by Wahab, KAI for 3 Months appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.