Friday, March 29, 2024

Ambode versus Banire: Battle over old mom’s residence

The long-drawn disagreement between the National Legal Adviser of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Muiz Banire (SAN), and the Governor Akinwumi Ambode-led Lagos State administration has continued in its dramatic streak.
Only two weeks ago, Banire’s acclaimed political goddaughter and fourth-time lawmaker, representing Mushin I Constituency, Mrs. Olufunmilayo Tejuoso, was evicted from a Lagos residence, classified as official quarters of the Deputy Speaker. Tejuoso was outside the country, when she received a phone call from her distraught husband, Kayode, that armed policemen had kicked him and the children out of their house.
However, the Lagos State Government later justified the eviction, saying the Tejuosos did not at all own the house, a claim which Kayode disputed, flying documents of their purchase deal.
Not a few politicians had on the social media linked the event to the raging dispute between Ambode and Banire.
However, a similar case is again playing out, involving Banire himself. Just like Tejuoso, Banire was out of the country when he heard the frightening news that the Lagos State Government was about to take over the home he and his siblings had bought for their aged mum.

My siblings and I acquired a lease of the property from the Federal Government to serve as residence for my aged mother. The lease covered the two-bedroom bungalow already on the land, together with a boys’ quarter

According to Banire, a former commissioner in Lagos State, he was in far-away Saudi Arabia, on the lesser Hajj, when he was informed that a contravention notice had been served on the residence of his 90-year old mother, Mrs. Sarat Banire, located on 24A, Remi Fani-Kayode Street, GRA, Ikeja, by officials of the Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development.
He said the notice mandated his mother to provide, within 24 hours, the planning permit obtained before the building was constructed, failing which the building would be demolished within 48 hours.

“My siblings and I acquired a lease of the property from the Federal Government to serve as residence for my aged mother. The lease covered the two-bedroom bungalow already on the land, together with a boys’ quarter. I did not have any reason to rebuild the house or do any further construction as the place was fit for the purpose for which it was acquired on lease,” Banire protested.
He, however, expressed the belief that the state government’s action was borne out of political vendetta, stressing that having failed to have him removed as the National Legal Adviser of the APC, the governor had devised other ways of persecuting him.
Banire said he was not in any way perturbed, “because my call for the respect of the rule of law and an end to imposition within the party came out of personal conviction.”
But in its reply to Banire, the Lagos State Government denied persecuting anyone for political reasons. In a response issued by the state’s Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Wasiu Anifowose, the state government described Banire as “trying to be clever by half” and pilloried him for “being childish in whipping up sentiments that his dear aged mother is the target of the said demand for development permit, and that the said property might be demolished in 48 hours.”
“There is no way Lagos State would have had a pre-knowledge of the owners of the properties in question let alone targeted the one that Banire had identified to be his own”, Anifowose said.
“The 27 properties served (such notice) across the state are just the first set of an ongoing exercise embarked upon by the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development to validate the records and permits of properties that have undergone ownership transfer processes. This is a routine and lawful exercise that ought not to be confusing to a supposedly learned gentleman who has had the privilege of serving in the Lagos State cabinet for a dozen years,” Anifowose responded.
Perhaps, a clearing of the air has been done on the allegation by Banire that the Lagos Government was planning to seize a building his family legitimately acquired for their aged matriarch. But it would seem that the last has not been heard on the raging cold
war.
The Banire-Ambode tiff dates to the July, this year’s local government election primaries in Lagos, during which Banire accused the governor of imposing candidates in the APC primary. Subsequently, some moves were made to get Banire sacked as National Legal Adviser of the party, from the home-front. But it was vetoed at the topmost echelon of the party.

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