Residents Of Makoko Stood Against Heavily Armed Police Men Sent To Evict Them

 Residents of Makoko area of Lagos on Wednesday, May 28, mounted a stout resistance to police officers deployed to evict them from their soon-to-be demolished homes.
The well-armed police couldn't accomplish their mission and were forced to retreat to their base in Yaba because of the residents’ strong resistance.
According to the residents, the police had rained bullets on them, but they had refused to be cowed and driven from their homes. They had lived in the area for more than one hundred years before the Lagos State Government suddenly woke up to order them to quit their homes without making any plans to resettle them.
One of the residents, a civil servant, said: "They [police] shot at us in an effort to eject us from our homes, but we will not give up just like that."
Another eyewitness stated that the policemen continued shooting at the resisters from their station in the Adekunle area. And allegedly some residents were killed.
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 Residents of the predominantly poor Makoko area of Lagos on Wednesday mounted a stout resistance to police officers deployed to evict them from their homes. Despite a show of firepower by the well-armed police, the residents’ strong resistance forced the officers to retreat to their base in Yaba, with their mission unaccomplished.
The policemen descended on the community at the instance of the Lagos State Government which needed the police to intimidate the residents as state officials carried out the demolition of homes.
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Yesterday’s foiled demolition was meant to follow a pattern of past demolitions by the Lagos State government of the homes of low-income Nigerians. The annexed land is then subsequently handed to privileged Nigerians, including former Governor Bola Tinubu, for upscale real estate developments.
In July 2012, the police had killed a deputy traditional chief, Timothy Azinpono, during a similar process of forcible demolition of houses on the Makoko waterfront. The residents who resisted yesterday’s ejection bid do not live on the waterfront.
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