Gowon estate residents expend N1m on road

Lagos – Gowon Estate Community
Development Association on Friday said that
it had spent about one million naira to fix
roads in the estate. The estate is located at
Ipaja, near Lagos.
The Chairman of the association, Mr Nathaniel
Okoro, said that the amount was expended in
the first quarter of this year.
He noted that the deplorable condition of
roads in the estate, prompted residents to put
resources together to repair the roads.
Okoro said that the roads had become an eye-
sore and death-trap for residents.
“All the roads in the Gowon Estate have
collapsed. There is hardly any motorable road
in the estate.
“The situation is getting worse every raining
season; it gets worse than the year before and
the problem of the residents increase every
year.
“We buy gravel, laterite and do manual labour
by ourselves to fix the roads and that is the
only reason why we can go out and come in.
“We have raised about one million naira in
June to fix some roads and that is the trend
over the years.’’
According to him, the estate, built during
FESTAC 77, has not witnessed any
maintenance.
He said that if government should delay
further, it would take a caterpillar to drive
through the roads because of erosion on the
roads.
The chairman lamented that efforts made
annually to seek help from the Mosan Okunola
Local Council Development Area and the
Lagos State Government had yielded no result.
He said that the council and the government
had been dodging the maintenance of the
estate on the ground that the estate was a
Federal Government property.
Okoro, however, argued that both the local
and State Governments had no excuse for not
fixing the roads because civil servants in the
estate paid taxes to the state.
According to him, the situation has been
affecting the socio-economic activities of
residents.
He said that the deplorable state of the roads
had also been increasing maintenance cost of
vehicles.
Also speaking, Mr Abayomi Abaniwonda, a bar
owner in the estate, said that half of the entire
road network in the estate had been washed
away by flood.
Abaniwonda said that the Federal Housing
Authority (FHA) had failed in its duties.
“ The estate’s roads are of serious concern to
tax-paying residents, when it rains you can’t
move unless with a-four-wheel vehicle,’’ Mr
Nicholas Ohabuenyi, a spare parts dealer
added.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Mosan Okunola
Council, Mr Abiodun Mafe, said that the
council did not neglect the estate deliberately.
He said that most residents of the estate were
paying tenement rates to the FHA, instead of
paying to the Lagos State Government.
“There are perceptions in the mind of the
people that the fund in the Local Government
is too enormous, they have the mindset that
we deliberately abandon them, which is not
true.
“The estate is being controlled by FHA which
collects rates, the only rate that we collect in
the estate is trade permit and we maintain
their entire environment and keep it tidy.
“We have not shied away from our
responsibility we are doing what the laws
permit us to do with available resources.
“We do not have enough resources to
maintain entire roads and FHA is the architect
of the dilapidation of the estate because all
revenues go to them,’’ the chairman said.
Mafe appealed to the residents to pay
tenement rates to the state by virtue of the
Land Use Act, which he said, gave the state
the custodian of the land.
The LG boss also urged the FHA to release
revenues generated from the estate to
maintain infrastructure and make it habitable
for people.
“The trade permit rate payable to the council
is used to maintain some roads, clean the
environment and cart away refuse. (NAN)