A court order has been given to the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit to auction abandoned and impounded vehicles.

The Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit said it had obtained a court order to auction 108 vehicles that were either abandoned or forfeited to the government.

According to the agency, vehicles to be auctioned to interested members of the public are 86 forfeited through a court order and 22 impounded by the enforcement team of the agency for driving against the traffic.

The Chairman of the agency, Olayinka Egbeyemi, stated that the auction would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, December 3 and 4, at the agency’s car park in the Ikorodu area of the state.

He said, “It was after the expiration of the 30-day public notice issued by the agency in line with the dictates of the law to all owners of the 22 abandoned vehicles to claim them that the government obtained the court order to auction them to interested members of the public.

“Let me commend the present administration for the massive road rehabilitation going on simultaneously across the state and to state clearly that motorists, both private and commercial, should desist from driving against the traffic or causing obstruction to other roads users.”

Egbeyemi added that the agency would continue to prosecute traffic offenders until sanity was restored on the roads and law-abiding citizens were allowed to commute without being impeded by unlawful individuals.

He noted that the agency had cleared all the illegal trucks and abandoned vehicles causing gridlock at the Guinness area of Ikeja and Ogba in line with the directive of the state Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu.