Occupants of the recently demolished informal housing settlement in the Opebi area of Lagos State known as Monkey Village, are still licking their wounds days after the demolition exercise.
Amongst the severely affected is a Non-Governmental Organisation, the Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection (CEE-HOPE) which had its ICT Centre and Youth hub destroyed alongside its library and gadgets.
According to CEE-HOPE which criticised the Lagos State Government for the demolition of the informal space, the act was a calculated attack on the poor as well as education.
The demolition which took place in the morning of December 31, 2020, was carried out by truckloads of policemen and thugs. They were said to have descended on Monkey Village with the aid of graders and bulldozers, pulling down the houses, and displacing more than 400 persons including children. Many of the residents who had gone out for the day had their homes totally demolished with their belongings inside.
The ICT Centre and youth hub built in the community by CEE-HOPE was also pulled down with several computers, library and other gadgets intact in the building.
According to the organisation, pleas by community members who had access to the Centre to allow them help retrieve the materials, were ignored. Destroyed also was CEE-HOPE’s water project in the community. Several members of the community were also brutalised by the thugs whom community sources told CEE-HOPE, were government-sponsored. (Vanguard)
