The Lagos Environmental Sanitation Corps, popularly known as KAI, has arrested no fewer than 12 persons for squatting on pedestrian bridges.
The state Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, said this on Wednesday in a post on X.
Wahab wrote, “The operatives of the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps @LAGESCOfficial today conducted clearance operations on the pedestrian bridges at Ikate Elegushi and Agungi along Ajah. Twelve miscreants were arrested for sleeping on the bridge and inside the opening under the bridge at Ikate Elegushi. The pedestrian bridge has been cleaned by @Lawma_gov and it is safe for use.”
Meanwhile, a Lagos-based lawyer, Festus Ogun, tackled the commissioner over what he described as punishing the poor for being homeless.
“Vagrancy Law was abolished in the 1980s. Punishing poor people for being homeless and jobless is unacceptable. It is a direct attack on human rights and the dignity of human persons,” Ogun wrote via @mrfestusogun.
In February, KAI said it arraigned and secured the conviction of 27 suspected miscreants arrested for unlawful conversion of pedestrian bridges in the state to their abode.
The suspects, after their conviction, were each sentenced to five months imprisonment by the court, according to LAGESC.
