As Anxiety  grips over 500,000 inhabitants of  Lagos slum areas of Ajegunle, Agege, Badia, Ijeshatedo, Iwaya, Ilaje, Bariga and Makoko over purported plans by the Nigerian office of the World Bank to suspend the funding of the Lagos Metropolitian Development and Governance  Project (LMDGP) worth $200million (N3.2 billion), the Speaker Lagos House of Assembly  Rt Hon Adeyemi Ikuforiji has pledged to intervene to ensure that the project designed  to upgrade the low level  of the human, social and infrastructural base of the communities is not abandoned.

Addressing a coalition of 20 Civil society groups under the auspices of Centre for Public Opinion Monitoring (CENPOM) and Conscience Nigeria who  stormed the House of Assembly in Alausa, Lagos, today to demand for the status of the project, he assured the demonstrators that the legislators will engage the state Governor, Babatunde Fashola and the World Bank to sustain the project saying the House was concerned about the plight of the slum dwellers.

Addressing the Legislators, representatives of the Coalition, Comrade Tosin Adeyanju  and  Affez Abiodun said the fears were palpable going by the slow pace of implementation of the projects in the slum areas and information reaching the people hinted that  suspension was imminent in September.

At the centre of the plan to halt the redevelopment of Lagos slums was said to be the  Nigerian Country Director of the World Bank, Ms Francoise Marie Nelly  who the source said, had not  hidden her dislike for the continuation of the program beyond September 2013.

While the Lagos state Government, the beneficiary of the loan and the Federal Ministry of Finance which executed the loan agreement of the project had supported the continuation of the project through extension for another 18 months, a move said to be  supported by the Internal Task Team of the Bank, the Country Director  have blocked the extension, preferring to transfer the remaining funds in the project to another one.

The World Bank was said to have hinged its planned withdrawal on the slow disbursement and the recent demolition  of illegal structures by squatters carried out by the Lagos state Government in Badia area of the state, insisting that the state Government must compensate the affected persons.

Submitting the  protest letter to the Speaker, the Coalition of Civil Societies in Support of Slums Rehabilitation stated that if not nipped in the bud, the suspension of the project  will affect the youths and women.

They stated in the letter: "17,000 pupils who are to benefit from the 450 new classrooms  under the project would have their education in jeopardy.

"60 per cent of the road and infrastructure projects in these areas  which are yet uncompleted will be abandoned.

"Over 50 percent of the water projects which will provide drinkable water for the over two million people are on going and liable to be abandoned upon cessation of the project.

"Over two million people who are involved (with  over 60% women and youths) will continue to live in poverty and squalor, since all the social upgrading projects will be abandoned.

"The Productive capacity of  the largely vibrant  informal sector will be curtailed leading to unimaginable economic and social consequences.

 "Our legislators sirs, as representatives of the people , we call on you to intervene in this impending truncation of the on going upgrading of Slum Areas, so that whatever disagreement the World Bank has with the Lagos State Government or the Federal Ministry of Finance should not be visited on the hapless people."

The coalition listed their requests to include that; "The Lagos state House of Assembly should activate its powers as the people's representative to prevail on the Country Director of the World Bank to drop her anti people posture  and stop her intension to cancel the LMDG funding for a minimum of 12 months to allow for the completion of all outstanding projects at different levels of  potential abandonment.

"The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, incidentally a product of the World Bank should utilize her best endeavors to intervene in a potentially dangerous attempt of the bank's  local officials to truncate one of the programmes which has started to  give Government  and the bank a human  face, particularly in Lagos where human deprivation and  pauperisation stare us in the face.

"While we commend the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola on the efforts to mitigate the pains of the inhabitants of the slum areas particularly the Badiya East affected by the demolition, the Governor should accelerate the rehabilitation and resettlement of the displaced inhabitants and payment of compensation for those wrongly affected."