Millions licensed to die under power lines!

For more than two decades, pupils at Clementine Schools in Agbado Oke, Lagos, began each day beneath twin high-voltage transmission lines. Parents brought their children, teachers held lessons and school activities continued without any obvious sign that the buildings stood inside a restricted corridor.

Then the bulldozers arrived. Within hours, classrooms that had served generations of children were reduced to rubble. Desks, books and equipment disappeared under broken concrete, while the school’s proprietress, 70-year-old educationist Clementine Adegoroye, watched decades of investment vanish.

Months later, she says she still cannot understand what happened next. Parts of the land where the school stood are now occupied by shops. “If government said my school was demolished because it was under the power lines, why are shops now standing there?” she asked.

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If government said my school was demolished because it was under the power lines, why are shops now standing there?

Her question is central to an investigation by Sunday Vanguard into developments beneath high-voltage transmission lines in parts of Lagos. Federal and state authorities have repeatedly warned that homes and businesses in these corridors face serious safety risks. Yet new commercial structures continue to appear in some of the same areas after demolition exercises, leaving millions of people exposed to disputed planning decisions.

Many residents and business owners say they bought land from recognized owners, secured planning approvals or occupied buildings that had existed for decades without government objections. Their accounts raise questions about who approved the developments and why demolitions occurred only after people had invested their life savings.

Adegoroye says she did not knowingly build illegally. She bought the land from a private owner who had acquired it from traditional landowners, conducted a survey and obtained planning approval for primary and secondary school buildings. When officials marked the school for demolition, she went to the State Secretariat in Alausa and presented her documents. Consultants later measured the setback from the transmission lines and, she says, told her the school met the required safety distance.

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They checked my school building. It was in-between two power lines with the minimum spacing met. They assured me the building would not be affect