More heat has continued to come the way of the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu and his campaign team after recent tv documentary making him as author and builder of modern day Lagos State after Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Trustee of Ọmọ Eko Pataki and former General Officer Commanding (GOC), Third Armored Division faulted the claim.
The retired general, instead, obliquely accused Tinubu and subsequent administration in Lagos of naked land grab in especially in the Lekki Shoreline development.
According to the illustrious son of Lagos and army general, such documentary ammounted to faking the true history of Lagos to achieve political ends.
The documentary in the main claimed that the Lekki Corridor was a shoreline of waste dump which was revamped and rebuilt into mordern city and property business hub by Tinubu.
Olanrewaju, a former Minister of Communications in a press statement on Wednesday noted that the story is not a true reflection of the entire stretch of the landscape.
“I won’t indulge myself in the ownership of the Oriental Hotel located along the Lekki road axis but it would be of interest to the public that part of the land upon which the property is located was allocated to a company called Kembu by the federal government.
“I acknowledge an intimate relationship with this company. I’m still in possession of the Certificate of Occupancy issued to Kembu by the federal government.
He added, “It is the lack of respect for the law by the Lagos State authority that deprived Kembu of the property. It is simply a land grab.
“It is a law-long gazette by the federal government that 100 meters to the shoreline, is a federally controlled asset. This still subsists.
The former GOC noted that the Maroko land improvement scheme was a project started and completed by Brig-Gen Raji Rasaki and further improved by other Military Administrators who took control of the state after his administration.
“It was the legendary Alhaji Lateef Jakande who had actually opened up the Lekki peninsula when the first democratically elected governor broke through the forests and the swamps with his road-building crew, erecting first-class roads from Ozumba Mbadiwe to the fringes of Epe, thereby opening up the Eastern corridor of Lagos State.
“Gbolahan Mudashiru, the military Administrator who succeeded him pushed the construction to Epe,” he said.
The statement noted that the governor of the state from 1999 to 2007, which was the administration of Ahmed Bola Tinubu added one lane to the existing two and erected toll gates to generate revenues.
“The general upgrades that attend the continuous service improvement on the Lekki and the Eastern Corridor is a combined effort which had evolved over time and leaders at every stage of their engagement have added value to the Lekki peninsula.
“Just like all human activities and endeavors, Lagos is a work in progress. It is never an arrival. Government is a continuum, a progressive work in perpetual motion where all protagonists fulfill their chores and leave the scene for others to continue. That’s the rhythm of life. No one is ever etched in perpetual relevance save the grace of the living God,” Olanrewaju stated.