Fresh crisis is brewing between the authorities of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State and some land grabbers in the community akin to the one in which former Vice Chancellor, Prof. Eyitope Ogunbodede escaped assassination by a whisker in 2021 and the university’s dam was allegedly poisoned by the same land grabbers who are already encroaching on the university land, TOBA ADEDEJI reports.
He land dispute crisis that has been rocking the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State for years assumed a new dimension recently as alleged land grabbers from Ile-Ife community cleared a portion of land belonging to the institution to erect a perimeter fence as demarcation for the portion owned by the community. The development has reignited the activities of armed hoodlums around the area.
The feud between OAU and the Ile-Ife community had come to the fore in April 2019 when the dam supplying water to the university community was allegedly poisoned by land grabbers who felt that the institution was impeding their activities around the Parakin areas.
It was gathered that the wrangling started in the twilight of the reign of former Ooni, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, when he gave a piece of land to an individual around Parakin area near OAU in Ile-lfe. However the management claimed the portion of the land as a group of people called OAU Crackers chased those individuals away and prevented them from encroaching on the university land.
Subsequently, the Ile-Ife community started selling portions of land to the people while construction workers working on the proposed OAU International Secondary School situated on the disputed land were chased away by hoodlums with cutlasses and other dangerous weapons. Farmers have also taken over portions of the land around Parakin where they now grow crops and thus compound the crisis.
The management of the institution insisted that the disputed land in Parakin belongs to the federal government, adding that the university was not ready to concede it to the community or anyone else. The authority of OAU insists that the land, measuring about 162 hectares, was given to the institution by the then Ooni of Ife, Oba Adesoji Aderemi, in the 1960s.
However, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, rebuffed the allegation of water poisoning over land grabbing activities, saying, “the allegation is spurious and unfounded. It is an expression of absurdity.” He wondered how any reasonable person would believe such an allegation when OAU and Ife community have been living harmoniously for 50 years and such an allegation never occurred.
The Ooni said: “Come to think of it, let us assume it is true. Where is the university situated? Majority of the students and staff of the university are indigenes of the community, and you expect that indigenes of the community would want to wipe away their lives?
“We, as a palace, are very furious to read in the newspapers and in the online media that our people poisoned water in the university. It is very absurd.”
The crisis had deepened in December 2020 when the Ile-Ife community under the aegis of the Ife Development Board warned the institution not to destroy their property on the disputed land to avoid the wrath of Ife people.
The President of Ile-Ife board, Jire Awowoyin, had warned that if OAU management brought people in to destroy their property, they would also send people in to send them away. The community also called on law enforcement agents to warn OAU not to trespass on their land. It also charged security agencies to approach the OAU management and ask for the documents of the land they claim belongs to them.
Awowoyin said: “OAU management is the one encroaching on Ife land by trespassing outside the portion of land given to the institution by the late Ooni of Ife, Ooni Adesoji Aderemi.
“The Management of Obafemi Awolowo has done its worst in muddling up the facts as contained in available documents that sealed the establishment of a university for the Western Region in 1962.”
He stated that “In 1965, the land transaction between Ife Province and the Western Region was gazetted in gazette number 13, Vol. 10 of 16th March, 1961. The Management of Obafemi Awolowo University which arrogated to itself 11, 961 hectares of land, commenced indiscriminate sales of the land to private individuals under the guise of Public-Private Partnership and BOT purposely to enrich members of the management and not the university.”
The community dared the management of the university to go to court over the matter.
At this time, people who were alleged to have purchased land from the community had started erecting personal buildings on the disputed land, making the matter messier.
However, before the crisis, the Federal Government, through the Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities programme, had built three multi-million naira hostels in the area that was being disputed. The hostels have 360 rooms each and about 2,000 altogether. The project was completed but abandoned before 2019 when the crisis started because of threats by land grabbers.
The institution’s management, through the Public Relations Officer of the school, disclosed that “three blocks of hostels built for students on the said land were abandoned due to attacks by hoodlums. For the safety of our children in the university, the vice-chancellor instructed us not to allocate any of the 360 rooms of the newly built hostel to them.”
On December 20, 2021, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Eyitope Ogunmodede, along with other principal staff of the institution and journalists, escaped an assassination attempt while inspecting the abandoned hostel. The community accused the institution’s management of forcible encroachment on their land.
The attack led by one of the leaders of Ife community caused tension as the VC hurriedly entered the car with his team before the hoodlums who were carrying weapons could get hold of him. The hoodlums were brandishing cutlasses, axes, charms and guns, among other deadly weapons. They shot sporadically into the air to scare the inspection team away.
However, the vehicles were bashed as the windscreens of some of them were smashed by heavy sticks.
Narrating his ordeal, Prof. Ogunmodede said: “The attackers shot sporadically and brandished dangerous weapons including machetes, charms, arrows and planks.”
He linked the development to the perennial land tussle between the university and some individuals within Ile-Ife community. The VC said the community’s palace was duly informed before it visited the site where the team was attacked.
He said: “We were told there was an attempt to encroach on the land belonging to the university using the opportunity of an ongoing road construction by the Osun State Government.
“We quickly got in touch with the palace and made it clear that the university management would visit the place to find out the truth.
“For proper capturing of the situation, we asked some reporters to join us at the site, which is just between the campus gate and Parakin. But as soon as our vehicles approached the place, some hoodlums descended on us, hauling stones and shooting at us. It was scary.”
Since then, there has been a cold war between the university and the community until 2022 when the management appointed Professor of Agricultural Economics, Adebayo Bamire, as the 12th substantive Vice Chancellor of the institution.
The community kicked against the development on March 17, 2022 contending that the Governing Council must appoint an Ife indigene as the VC. One of the protesters, Bimbo Afolabi, said since over 61 years that the institution was established, no indigene of Ife had been appointed as the VC.
It was reliably gathered that OAU petitioned the Police Command in Osogbo over the matter where the community challenged the management representatives to provide documents to back up the claim that they own the land. However, nothing was provided to the police.
Subsequently, the traditionalists invaded the school campus, carrying rituals to kick against the appointment of the VC. The community alleged that outgoing Prof Ogunbodede discriminated against Ife applicants for the post of VC, owing to a land dispute between the institution and the community.
However, the management insisted that the process that produced Banire was fair and transparent. A top source in the management cadre of OAU held that the Ife community decided to fight the appointment of the new VC because they had planned that the emergence of Ife indigene as the VC of the institution would make way for the school to relinquish the disputed parts of the land to them.
“However, the plan and aspiration failed with the appointment of Bamire who is from Oyan, Osun State.”
In a recent development, The Nation gathered that fresh encroachment had begun on the university’s property as land grabbers suspected to be from Ile-Ife community started erecting a demarcation fence at the Maintenance yard axis in April 2024.
A security source in the university disclosed that the group of grabbers from Ile-Ife led by a traditional ruler, the Ologudu, was sighted with a bulldozer, creating a pathway behind a petrol filling station through the back of Maintenance Yard crossing the road created during the West African University Games (WAUG) through to Road 7 axis of the university land.
The source said: “When confronted, the Ologudu stated that the Ife community has mandated his team to build a wall fence to demarcate the Ife land from that of OAU, and it was the project they were working on. However, the Chairman Security Committee was informed and instructed that they should be stopped. The Dean of Student Affairs, Professor Odedire, was also contacted to liaise with the Palace.
“The Director CDPD was informed, who sent a representative of the unit, Mr. Olaifa, who told the acclaimed Ife representative that the portion of the land they were working on belonged to the university and that the old sawmill building had been there since 1972, but they were insensitive to all his explanation.
The Ologudu, who led the Ife community representatives, stated that it is only the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, who can ask them to stop the project.
“He equally said that he expected the university to have met with the Kabiyesi and conclude on the land issue after the release of the Parakin students’ hostels by the Ooni palace. He then advised the university to make an effort to send high-powered delegates to the Ooni on the land issue.
“To avoid the Ife community/university clash, Ologudu was advised to put on hold the project pending the intervention of the Kabiyesi. He, however, seemed to be adamant.”
When contacted on the matter, the Ologudu’s phone went unanswered while the text messages sent to him were not responded to at the time of filing this report.
Speaking with the Public Relations Officer of the institution, Abiodun Olarewaju, he lamented the renewed activities of land grabbers who he said were threatening members of the university community with weapons including guns, axes, cutlasses and charms.
He explained that “Some elements in Ile-Ife who claim to be indigenes of the town are the ones encroaching on the land. They are claiming that it belongs to the Ife community.
“Before some of them were born, that land was given to the university administration. Why is it now that some people just woke up using the instrumentality of thuggery to acquire the land that their forefathers who had foresight gave to us?”
He noted that the grabbers acquired the land illegally from the institution and were selling them to some individuals.
Olarewaju said “the university came out with a jingle to inform those who bought the land that they are on their own.
“I gave the instance of the University of Lagos land which some people acquired illegally. When the federal government took over, they demolished every structure on the land without compensation.
“The same thing will apply here. Any reasonable individual will not go and build structures on the land that is under dispute.”
He added that “some of the landgrabbers are claiming that the land given to us by their forefathers was too much and that we are not using them. We kept quiet, they went ahead to grab the land.
“Recently, the federal government gave us the go ahead to start building a fence around our property. We started that around campus gate towards Ede Road, they now quickly brought a bulldozer through the Mayfair area of the Campus axis and they made some roads there. They were erecting their own fence on our land.
“As I am talking to you, there are hostels which the Federal Government built on that land and we are unable to access till now. We have accommodation problems for our students. We could not allocate the hostels to our students because we wouldn’t want some hoodlums sponsored by unscrupulous elements to go and attack our students.”
The spokesperson of the institution stressed that “the university authority led by Prof. Bamire has taken some steps which I won’t reveal for security reasons. So all those who bought our land from land grabbers will regret it.”
“Oba Ologudu of Ife led grabbers to the land recently. He said nobody can chase him away from that place except the Ooni of Ife.
“After that, the VC called the Ooni over the matter and he promised that he would find out those who are involved. The VC called again and the king said he had found out those that were involved.
“The VC called again but His Majesty has not reached out till today.
“Till today, landgrabbers are operating on our land with impunity. They are brandishing dangerous weapons and even using charms to threaten us. The federal government must do the needful against these landgrabbers. We are not ready to cede any portion of land to anybody,” he said.
When our correspondent contacted the Director, Media and Public Affairs of the Ooni’s Palace, Moses Olafare, he did not pick his calls for days and did not respond to the text and Whatsapp messages sent to him.
Also, Ile-Ife’s lawyer, Barrister Adeyemi Adetise, when contacted on the matter, lambasted the management of OAU for attempting to use propaganda and public sympathy to get the land that is not theirs with impunity and without documents to back up their claims.
He confirmed that Oba Ologudu is a second class Oba in Ile-Ife appointed by Oba Adeyeye to represent the interest of the community on any matter related to land.
Adetise said: “OAU are just claiming ownership of the land but they don’t have any document to back it up. They encroached on our land to erect the hostels.
“OAU is using thugs to chase our people from the land that belongs to us. In between that disputed land and OAU, there is an old barbed wire fence even to the end of the OAU dam and the gate of the institution at Road 7 gate. The fence was erected in the 1970s by the institution.
“The matter on this land started during the reign of the former Ooni. Oba Sijuwade wrote a letter to the Surveyor-General of the Federation over this matter to provide documents. The university and the community set up a 14-man committee, seven from OAU and seven from Ile-Ife to resolve the matter. But in the midst of this, the king died.
“However, while the stool of Ooni was vacant, OAU went to that land to start building hostels on the disputed land. They built it between 2015 and 2017. I am disappointed in them because they did not even honour the king and shared grief with the community.
“It is unfortunate that the leadership of a corporate organisation can be behaving like ‘Omo Onile’ (land grabbers). I am disappointed that with the retinue of professors they have there, they could be behaving like that. They never allowed the mediation committee to complete their job.
“While they were building the hostel, our people went there to stop them, and during that time, the current Ooni was installed.”
He continued: “After then, the then VC, Prof. Bamitale Omole, met Ooni that the community should allow them to continue with the building, because at that time the king wanted to build Olokun Park on the land. Oba Ogunwusi agreed on the grounds that whosoever the committee give the land to at the end of the day will consider the other as tenant on the disputed land.
“When Kabiyesi was building his own, the university employed a security team called Crackers who are thugs to chase them off the land. OAU believe they can use propaganda on the pages of newspapers and public sympathy to win the land. It is a matter of fact. Let them challenge us in court.
“The land given to OAU is around 15,862 acres, which was gazzetted, backed by a map and Survey 41 of
1962. But they are claiming almost 12,000 hectares which is about 30,000 acres. We presented the documents that stated the number of land that was given to OAU but they couldn’t provide documents to back up their claims till today.”
