When the Kwara State government decided to tar the about 18-kilometre byepass from Sango end of Ilorin/Jebba Road to Akerebiaata trunk ‘C’ road, the people of the area in question described the government’s gesture as unprecedented.

They began to count their chickens even before the eggs were hatched. Shops, filling stations, nursery and primary schools and social halls sprang up on the road in linear structural formation, celebrating the opening up of the area to business activities after many years of neglect.

Landowners leapt for joy savouring the sudden high patronage by vendees with its attendant high cost slammed on land in the area.

But the joy today seems momentarily, as the government, through its agency, the Town Planning Development Authority has moved into the area. This agency has not restricted its activities to this area as it has equally combed the student-populated area of Tanke Road.

The authority, which recently engaged in the enforcement of regulatory set-back of buildings along roads in Ilorin, moved into these areas with a bulldozer pulling down every structure on the restricted areas, irrespective of their aesthetics or size.

The development forced uncontrollable tears down the cheeks of the shop owners, attendants and tenants. Thick dust rented the air as bricks and corrugated iron sheets fell over each other. Sympathisers besieged the areas asking countless questions that the forlorn looking workers of the governmental agency failed to answer.

The development, which sparked off heavy traffic on the roads, as vehicles moved at snails’ speed for several hours, looked unprecedented in the 46-year history of the creation of the state and its capital.

A shop owner at Royal Valley Estate section of the Akerebiata Road, Mr. Samuel Adekunle, a native of Eruwa in Oyo state, had stood in front of his shop daring the bulldozer driver to clear him with the shop.

According to 68-year-old Adekunle: “I retired from the civil service eight years ago. I used my gratuity to build this shop with the aim of using the proceeds to keep my body and soul together. If you pull it down you have pulled down my life, my source of income and my joy.”

But the men of the National Civil Defence Corps attached to the agency carried him forcefully, while the bulldozer pulled down the highly valued shop. Adekunle later threatened a legal action against the state.

For Alhaja Muniat Akanbi, the owner of an eatery at Tanke, curses galore would be invoked on “all those responsible for this wicked act against me. Where do they want me to go to now? Almighty God who knows what others don’t know will pull down their own sources of income.”

Reacting to the development, Kwara State Commissioner for Information, Tunji Morounfoye said the people should understand what the government  is doing, adding that demolition exercise anywhere in the world had never “been applauded, yet it is necessary to avoid distortion.”

Morounfoye urged the victims not to resort to any extra judicial act over the demolition, as the government of the day would do everything possible to retain the master-plan of the state capital.