Residents of Gberigbe Orelade in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State have asked Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, to protect them from landgrabbers and thugs operating in the area.
They told The Nation that the landgrabbers aided by rogue security agents and thugs have made the area – their ancestral home – unliveable for years, killing, assaulting and chasing people from their homes.
They said they had written several petitions to the state government, the Commissioner of Police in the state and the IGP, but that the criminals recently struck again and sacked the community.
Those that spoke said they protested at the Lagos State Secretariat in Alausa on Monday, adding that their ownership of the area was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1913.
One of them, Mrs Bisola Yusuf, the Iyaloja of Gberigbe, who recounted what happened in May 2021 when the hoodlums struck, said the thugs destroyed her home, so she had to relocate to Ikorodu town.
“That day, we saw Okada with many people, they entered and started shooting; they covered their faces so we couldn’t identify them and we couldn’t stay, so we ran away. That was on the 19th of May 2021. Three days later, we came to Alausa to protest, but when we got back home, they still attacked us, see my hand,” Mrs Yusuf said displaying a scar.
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“We want the government to help us. We want to go back to our homes; we don’t want to fight with them. We didn’t sell land or enter any farm to sell land and we don’t know why they are fighting us. When the government sent the Rapid Response Squad (RSS) to protect us, we enter our homes. But when the RSS goes away, they will come and attack us again. We have reported this matter to all the police stations around Gberigbe, Lagos and even Abuja.”
Another resident, Mr Olusegun Adekoya Fasanya corroborated the Iyaloja. He said the thugs shot at anything on sight,
“We ran out of Gberigbe. They just called me that they (the thugs) had burnt my house. That is the first house I built with shops; now I don’t have anything. That my house is a two-bedroom flat with 12 shops surrounding it. Everything I have is gone. I was born in Gberigbe. If I calculate all that I have lost, it is roughly 20million. I am 58 years.
“We want govt to come and help us. We can’t enter our community again; those people attacking us are not from our community. They didn’t give us any notice; they just entered to sack us from our community.”