Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr Oluyinka Olumide, had revealed in a recent interview with the press that a staggering 80% of buildings in Ibeju Lekki lack proper approval.
Olumide emphasized that obtaining a layout permit is impossible if the area is not appropriately zoned for its intended purpose or for the purpose being requested.
“Just last week Thursday and Friday, myself and the team were in the Ibeju Lekki and Epe axis and you would agree with me that anybody passing through that corridor would see a lot of estates marked. We went there, and I can tell you that from what we saw, over 80 per cent of them do not have approval.
“The procedure to get approval is first to get the planning information, as to what those areas have been zoned for. In this case, what we have is agricultural land, and people now go to their families to buy agricultural land. Of course, those lands would be sold because those families do not know the use such land would be put to.
“The next thing to do is the fence permit. If you missed the earlier information on not knowing the area zoning, at the point of getting the fence permit, you would be able to detect what the area is zoned for. After that, the layout permits a large expense of land follows.
“So, you can see all these layers, but people still go ahead to start advertising. Some have even gone to the extent of displaying the sizes they want to sell. Imagine someone in the diaspora who wants to send money without any knowledge,” he said.
He added, “Then, no approval is eventually gotten. Even if they pass the assignment and the survey to them, we would not grant the individual permit, because that area is not zoned for that purpose.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Octo5 Holdings, Jude Odusolu, also noted that the masterplan for the Lekki Peninsula had been distorted since 2010 due to rapid development, with newer estates bypassing old regulations.
He said, “The Lekki peninsula had a master plan which was originally launched when Bola Tinubu was the governor and updated under Babatunde Fashola. Almost all large estates along the Lekki corridor, especially those developed between 2000-2008, have approved layout plans. It was obligatory and rigidly enforced by the state government.
“However, starting in 2010, the plans became distorted with accelerated development, and many of the smaller schemes that sprung up deliberately sought to avoid the large infrastructure burdens carried by the legacy era developments.
“I am sure investigations with developers such as UPDC (Pinnock Beach), Trojan Estate, Aircom (Northern Foreshore), Cityscape (Buenavista), Howard Roarks (Lake View) and Octo5 (Ocean Bay) will reveal how they all spent huge sums providing infrastructure with zero support from the government while still paying punitive taxes.”
Odusolu highlighted that the government has weaponized planning and titling for internally generated revenue, which disincentivizes compliance and leads to chaotic development.
On the other hand, Femi Oyedele, the Managing Director of Fame at Oyster & Co. Nigeria, mentioned that most of the estates in the area had layout plans that were not coordinated to form a planned city.
He pointed out that the communities that were not planned were the historic settlements that the government excised in the scheme.
“To do Lekki better, those estates which have been approved on the west and east arterial roads, which go down to Awoyaya on the east side and to Akodo on the west side of Lekki-Epe Expressway, must be demolished to make way for the planned roads.
“The kind of restoration done to Abuja by Nasir El’Rufai must be done in Lekki. Lekki Peninsular and Victoria Island have a population of over 3 million people.
“Glasgow has a population of less than 2 million people with twice the roads of Lekki Peninsula,” he said.
