Fashola warns traders against reconstructing Okobaba Plank Market

Gov. Babatunde Fashola of Lagos on Thursday said that the State Government would allow immediate reconstruction of the razed Okobaba Plank Market in Ebute Metta.

 The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that fire on Tuesday razed no fewer than 50 makeshift houses and several sawmill in the market. Fashola said while addressing the traders when he visited the market that reconstruction would only commence after a new government`s plan for the market had been issued. He said the age-long chaotic arrangement of the market and the haphazard way in which traders operated probably caused the tragedy, saying that the situation was a threat to lives and properties.

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``We are coming to clear the rubble here and nobody should build here without town planning approval. We won`t let you do it. ``And this is the process to beginning to re-separate sawmill and plank business from other residential activities and gradually we can clean this place up. ``After the clean-up of this place, you will still stay here while those who want to move will move.

``We can make this place just the Lagos Plank Market and move the timber people away. But there are so many things we can do here. ``In other places in the world, this is the kind of places; we will go and pay money to visit if we organise it properly.

``We have to do business in a way that protects lives and properties. You can save a lot by having insurance on your stalls and buildings. We should begin to do things right,’’

 Fashola said. He said a new plank market was being built to resettle some of the traders in the market, saying that the new market would have no fewer than 3,000 homes nearby. While sympathising with the displaced traders and residents, Fashola pledged that the State Government would resettle them briefly in a relief camp where they would be given some relief materials.