Trade Fair demolition: Obi calls on Lagos to use mercy while enforcing the law
Trade Fair demolition: Obi calls on Lagos to use mercy while enforcing the law
Being “legally correct” is not the same as being morally right, according to former presidential candidate Peter Obi, who asked the Lagos State administration to exercise mercy when enforcing the demolition of structures. The remarks were made a week after he visited the Trade Fair Complex’s demolished ASPAMDA Market site, where he criticized the state and called the destruction of merchant plazas a test of its commitment to justice and human dignity.
However, reacting in a statement on Wednesday last week, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, said Obi launched into emotional theatrics when he described the incident as “a test of impunity, justice and compassion.”
He defended the destruction by pointing out that the state government’s announcement of a general amnesty last year, which was repeatedly extended, gave the impacted traders plenty of time to regularize their documents.
However, Obi cautioned in a statement posted on his X handle on Tuesday that the law should never be applied in a way that causes “undeserved pain” or ruins livelihoods when there are less harmful alternatives. “Governments should pursue formal legal remedies rather than waking up one morning to demolish homes or businesses,” the former governor said, drawing on a personal experience overseas to support his argument.
It is important to remind those attempting to defend the ongoing demolitions in Aspamda Market, Lagos, and other comparable circumstances throughout Nigeria that the law is a tool to maintain peace, order, and the preservation of human dignity, not an end in and of itself.
The law no longer serves justice when it is used as a tool to cause unjustified suffering and is applied without empathy or consideration for the wellbeing of people. Was demolition the only choice, even if, for the sake of argument, some of the impacted traders did not receive the required approvals, which is unlikely? Why weren’t regularization prospects explored if, as some have claimed, they actually existed?
When less destructive solutions could have been used, does it really serve justice to destroy livelihoods and investments worth billions of naira?
