The General Overseer of Christ Voice Ministry, Pastor Johnson
Arikawe, has accused officials of the Lagos State Taskforce on
Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Unit of
demolishing his church building and carting away church
property.
Arikawe made the allegation in a petition to the Lagos State
Governor, Babatunde Fashola, a copy of which was made
available to Newsmen.
It was gathered that the church, which was located on 10
plots of land at Bolorunpelu, Shapati, Lekki, Lagos, had earlier
received a notice from the Lagos State Building Control
Agency in June 2014, to stop further development of the
property.
The notice, which was dated June 13, 2014, with Ref. No.
LASBCA/LBC/SW/JUNE/14/002, stated that the building under
construction was unauthorised and did not comply with the
development permit issued by the Lagos State Physical
Planning Authority.
It was learnt that on Friday, December 12, 2014, task force
officials demolished the building and carted away some of the
church’s property.
Expressing surprise at the demolition, Arikawe alleged that the
action of the officials were not only malicious, but criminal.
He said, “I was at a prayer summit somewhere outside Lagos
on the day of the incident. The surprising thing was that there
was no prior notice and we have also stopped further
development on the property as instructed.
“The structure was a temporary one. We intend to erect a
more befitting and permanent structure as soon as we can. I
was shocked when I received a call that some policemen had
forcefully entered the church premises and demolished the
building. Attempts by some members of my church to salvage
some of the church’s property were unsuccessful as they were
denied access to the premises.
“After the demolition, the officials took time to destroy the
building materials, making sure that nothing was salvaged.
They also carted away church property, including drum set,
keyboard, amplifiers, generators, speakers and microphones.
“We consider this action as not only malicious, but criminal.
We have written to the governor to come to our aid, but we
have yet to get any help. As I speak to you now, we now
conduct services in members’ residences, from one house to
another.”
On whether there was any issue concerning the land on which
the church was built, Arikawe said there was no contention
about the land as he bought the property from the rightful
owners.
“Our investigations revealed that there is no contention about
ownership of the land where my church is located. The Ojule
family is the rightful owner of the land and I bought same
from the members directly.
“When the incident happened, I called Sakiru, one of the Ojule
sons, who rushed to the scene to intervene. He was arrested
and was only released on Sunday when news got to them
that his father had died. Sakiru is now the Baale of the
community after his late father,” he said.
Reacting, the Public Relations Officer, LASBCA, Dapo Ajayi,
said the agency was not aware of the demolition, even though
it had issued the notice.
“We issued the stop-work notice because the work going on
at the site as of then was not according to plan, but we are
not aware of the demolition,” he said.
However, the task force Chairman, Bayo Sulaiman, said what
was demolished was not a building, but a shanty built on
government land.
On the issue of carting away church property, he said, “After
the demolition, we felt that some of the items would be
plundered after we have left. We took those items and put
them in a safe place. All the owner needs to do is to come
and claim the items.
“They will come with proof of ownership to claim the items.
Mind you, there was no building on that land, it was a make-
shift structure erected on government land.”