A purported proposal by the Police Wives Association to demolish the POWA Plaza in less than a month has drawn opposition from certain retailers at the Computer Village in the Ikeja neighborhood of Lagos State.
The traders, who felt wronged, made a plea to the state House of Assembly members, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Inspector General of Police, and Lagos State Governor to step in.
According to Tayo Shittu, the chairman of the Computer Dealer Association, the shopkeepers pay between N300,000 and N400,000 a year, and the Police Wives Association has a self-serving agenda to destroy the stores.
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“We have a copy of the letter of acknowledgment. They want to use the excuse that the building has defects but it is a lie,” Shittu stated. “We have reached out to POWA and they denied the letter saying that they do not know about it. They want to demolish this place for their selfish interest. Several hustler developers have refused to demolish this place. What we discovered is that there are two women from POWA who are majorly involved and one is the national chairman in Abuja.
Although the traders had appealed to the Police Wives Association, according to Trust Tobechukwu, the former chairman of the Computer traders Association, they had not heard back as of yet.
“The Police Wives Association owns this plaza; some of them are widows and some are the wives of retired police officers,” Tobechukwu stated. The plaza was designated for demolition at some point in 2019, but when we looked into it, we found that the information was inaccurate. We found out it was a developer looking to get in on a little underhanded deal.
“We took the matter to POWA Lagos after receiving a letter from a developer named Achieving Greatness Properties asking us to vacate the property, and they assured us that the demolition would proceed. Through our attorney, we have written to the wife of the Inspector General of Police, but we have not heard back from her yet. They ought to take the shoppers into account.
The Iya Oloja, Computer Village, Abisola Azeez, pointed out that rather than forcing the sellers to give up their main source of income, issues might be resolved between the traders and the business owners.
“My shop has been here since 1999,” the woman stated. We usually have problems here with POWA. Everybody has their own landlady. The plaza’s construction and upkeep are entirely the traders’ responsibility. Their goal is to drive us out and replace us with strangers.
“The plaza is a single-story structure free of structural flaws. They should let us know if there are any issues that need to be fixed or if they require a payment increase so that we can take care of everything.
A dealer in the POWA complex named Chimaeze Iwuji stated in an interview with PUNCH Metro, “They told us they had 30 days to demolish the buildings.” We requested a formal letter from the relevant authorities, but they refused, stating that we had no right to speak. This made us all feel threatened. It appears that a developer and one or two POWA members are involved in the demolition of this location.
As of the time this report was filed, numerous calls and messages made to POWA Omoh Oziegbe, the liaison officer, had not been answered, hence all attempts to gain her response had failed.