The Nation Newspaper

Tag: trespassers

  • Widow seeks Ambode’s help to reclaim property from alleged trespassers

    A widow, Mrs. Nneka Okoli, has urged the Lagos State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode to help retrieve her property from some persons who recently forcibly hijacked six plots of land belonging to her late husband.

    The controversial property is located in the Isheri Oshun area of the State.

    Okoli said she had reported the matter to the Lagos State Task Force on Land Grabbers at Ikeja, to no avail.

    In a petition forwarded to the Governor’s Office in Alausa, Ikeja, Okoli expressed her difficulty at getting justice over the matter.

    The petition “Intervention for justice” dated January 21 read in part: “The Ministry of Justice looked into my case and directed me to the Land Grabber Committee and the secretary of the committee invited them (the suspected land grabbers), they came and saw that the survey they did for me for N400, 000 does not have a red copy at Alausa (Lands Bureau). They also saw that they did not give me the receipts for all the payment I made to them. I presented the teller I used to pay into their bank account and their signature.”

    Okoli said the Task Force gave the alleged culprits one week to settle with her to no avail.

    She said her second visit to the office of the Task Force did not yield any fruit as she was told by those she met there that the Task Force did not have the power to retrieve the property for her.

    She appealed to the governor to rescue her from hopelessness and injustice perpetrated against her by the land grabbers.

    “Please sir, help me, my condition is bad. My children are no longer in school since 2015, five children in all. We are living in one room (apartment); no food to eat and nowhere to do church (sic). My children are suffering. Please help me for God’s sake. The matter has been on since August 18, 2016. Please sir, help me and look into this matter.”

    Contacted, the chairman of Lagos State Task Force, Mr Jide Bakare, declined comments on the matter.

    He said: “I would not speak with you on the telephone since I don’t know you. You have to come to my office to get my reactions to the matter.”

  • Govt set to recover LASU land from trespassers

    Govt set to recover LASU land from trespassers

    Lagos State Government   will  next year initiate moves to recover all land belonging to its university, LASU, from trespassers, an aide to the governor said yesterday.

    Special Adviser on Education Fela Bank-Olemoh made this known yesterday at a stakeholders’ meeting with leaders of community development associations held at LASU in Ojo.

    He said a survey revealed that over 2000 houses were standing on some parts of the land that were being encroached upon till date.  Rather than demolish those structures, he said the government  had given the trespassers opportunity to regularise their property with the university.

    The special adviser, however, said those who have built on the land university would be allowed to regularise their papers.

    Bank-Olemoh said the Certificate of Regularisation could be used to obtain loans in the bank.

    He said the portal would be open for applicants from January 15 to April 30. Defaulters, he said,  would  pay a 25 per cent surcharge from May to June next year. The surcharge will be raised to  50 percent between July 1 and September 30, after which such property would forfeited to LASU.

    LASU Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof Lanre Fagbohun lamented that over 75 per cent of land belonging to LASU was currently being encroached.

    Fagbohun recalled that the dream of the institution’s founding fathers was to have a world class citadel of learning, with enough space for infrastructure.

    Fagbohun said the encroachers were so bold that some of them broke through the university fence to erect their properties.

    Those in that category, he said,  would have their houses demolished. He said others whose papers show that their properties are on the university land would be asked to regularise them.

    “Now, we are committed to doing it,” Fagbohun warned.

    “People often say government will start something but abandon it almost immediately. This (regularisation) will not be like that, and it will be done within a time frame. We therefore ask all to partner with the government to achieve this.”

    Among those at the meeting were representatives of the Ministry of Education; Ministry of Justice; Town Planning Department and Office of the Surveyor-General.

  • Trespassers will be vaccinated

    As the rumpus over military vaccine took hold of the nation’s imagination, there have been many strange developments. They portend a nation at the end of its tethers. The rumour is that the humane syringe is a legitimate weapon of warfare. An old cynic, full of bile and bitterness, was said to have been sighted around Sogunle demonstrating to people how the military injection contraption works like an alternative AK Kalashnikov.

    But if the sight of hysterical women and men yanking their wards from school is not funny enough, try this one for size. On an old farmstead around Agbara, a strange signboard suddenly materialized announcing that trespassers will be vaccinated. Everybody has been giving the farmstead a wide berth. Something new always comes out of Nigeria indeed.

    And a story was told about the late strongman of Ibadan politics, Lamidi Ariyibi Adedibu aka, Alaafin of Molete. When he was told about a plot of land somewhere in Ibadan with the signboard, This Land is Belong to Lamidi Adedibu, the old man laughed it to scorn insisting that he knew nothing about the land. But upon their persistence, Adedibu decided to pay a visit and behold the signboard and an aging farmer crouching nearby. When he was queried by the strongman, the farmer confessed that it was his own talisman against land-grabbing thugs whereupon the late Robin Hood, after convulsing with laughter, generously gave the man the funds to develop his plot.

  • Lagos warns Lekki-Epe land trespassers

    The Lagos State Government yesterday warned illegal developers and land speculators in the Lekki-Epe corridor to stop forthwith their unlawful activities or face the law.

    Commissioner for Commerce, Industry and Co-operative, Prince Rotimi Ogunleye gave the warning when he toured the area where the 16,347 hectares Lekki Free Zone (LFZ) project is sited.

    The government, he said, was worried by the trespassers activities who have been swindling buyers. The land he said, was under acquisition.

    Ogunleye explained that buyers who did not do “proper investigation at the Land Bureau and the Surveyor General’s Office” risked losing their money. Besides being being acquired, the land, he said, was committed to LFZ projects, the resettlement of affected communities and other schemes.

    He noted that signposts of private estates, private universities, companies, a military zone and host of others were some of the “visible encroachments” on the land.

    The commissioner said Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had approved that stern measures be taken against the illegal developers and the structures removed.

    Ogunleye advised the public to be wary of dubious advertisements on “land purchase beside the Lekki Free Zone” sponsored by private estate developers on almost all radio stations in the state.

    He said the development projects the land was acquired for were in progress, citing the LFZ project and Dangote Refinery and Petrol Chemical Plant as part of the multi-billion dollars investments there.

  • Nonagenarian warns trespassers

    Ninety-six-year-old Pa Christopher Ojomo has warned trespassers on his family land in Okemeji in Igbokoda Local Government Area, Ondo State.

    He said people with questionable characters were using faking documents to acquire others’land.

    He said the land was willed to him b his late father, the late James Ojomo, founder of Cherubim and Seraphim, Okemeji.

    He said any transaction on it without his consent was a violation of right of the Ojomo family to the titles of the land.

    Addressing reporters in Lagos, he said some telecoms companies were discussing with certain people, who do not have titles to the land, adding that the Ojomo family has commenced legal proceeding to halt such transaction and encroachment.

    He said some members of the Okemeji communities approached the telecom companies with fake documents on the deal, stressing they even came to meet him with the fake papers in Lagos, but he warned them to desist.

    Ojomo said: “The land belongs to my father, James Ojomo, Founder of Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) Okemeji, which he handed over to me being his eldest son. I learnt Nicholas Philip, son of Ogundana, has been parading himself as the owner of the land.

    “Let me use this medium to reach out to him to desist from encroaching on the land handed over to me by my father. Our legal team has commenced the necessary process to seek redress on the matter; those who are transacting business in respect of Okemeji/Idiagbon land are warned.”

    Speaking on the development, Ojomo’s lawyer Lanre Mabawonku Chamber said legal proceeding has started, noting that the nonagenarian is the heir to the land.

    “The land in contention belongs to my client and we have all the valid document to substantiate the claims. Any other document presented to those telecoms companies in respect of the land are not genuine.

    “The land they are talking about holds the prospect of economic viability. We are not surprised at the twist of event. They want to grab it for selfish reason and we are going to resist such conduced by legal means.

    But  Ogundana said he was not contesting any land with anyone at Okemeji. ‘’As far as I am concerned, the land at Okesiri belongs to me and you can come to see things for yourself.

    “I am the head of Okesiri, where our church is located. Whatever they are talking about concerning Okemeji is known to us. The land at Okesiri belongs to me. I don’t want to state further that this,’’ he said.

  • Descendants warn trespassers on Madam Tinubu’s land

    Descendants of the first Iyalode Egbaland, the late Madam Iyalode Efunyose Tinubu (Osuntinubuwa), have issued a red card to trespassers on their matriarch’s land in Lagos.

    They gave 42 Families in the state seven days to vacate the land or face litigation.

    After a prayer meeting marking 129 years of the Iyalode’s death in Lagos, at the weekend, the descendants, led by the Head of the Shobowale extended family, Mr. Lasisi Odedairo (aka Baba Oniburedi), told reporters that successive judgments have declared that the 42 families are not the owners of the land.

    With him were his deputy, Alhaja Iyabo Shodimu, Board of Trustees Secretary Rev Musliu Adio Ola Bakare, a youth leader, Waliu Bakare and their lawyer Akinfolabi Akindele.

    Odedairo said the Iyalode, who died in December 1887, did not sell the land to those “families.”

    The land, he said, covered Ewe-Agbigbo, Mushin, Odi-Olowo/ Idi-Oro, Obanikoro, Isolo, Shomolu, Bariga, Igbobi-Sabe, Yaba, Anthony, Itire, Ikate, Surulere, Iddo-Oto, Opebi-Allen, Ebute-Meta, Makoko, Ikeja, Fadeyi, Ojota, Maryland, Ketu, Ikosi, Onigbogbo, Alapere, Iyana-Oworo, Magodo-Shangisha, Magodo Isheri, Oshodi, Abule-Ijesha, Akoka, Ikorodu Road, Agege Motor Road, Isolo Road, Ojodu Berger, Ogba, Lawanson, Alausa, Lagos-Abeokuta expressway, Bank Anthony Way, Idiroko and Ijeshatedo.

    It also stretches to Amuwo Odofin, Mile 2, Festac Town, Ilasamaja, Ishaga, Ijora, Apapa, Amukoko, Onitiri, Onike, Iwaya, Shasha, Ejigbo, Yaba, Alagomeji, Ikotun, Ayobo, Alagbado, Lagos Island, Ibeju Lekki, Alimosho, Badagry and Agbado Ijaiye

    Odedairo claimed that the land was granted to their  matriarch by the Oloto Chieftaincy Family as represented by Oloto Baalo Oriagbaya in 1834.

    He said when the late Madam Tinubu, retired to Abeokuta in 1856, she left Eyisha on the land as the head of her domestic workers to be collecting tributes from the natives, farmers and others.

    According to him, the late Iyalode did not give Eyisha permission to sell the land.

    Many families in Lagos and Ogun States, he said, had appropriated the land and were fleecing the descendants.

    Lawyer Akindele said: “Herbert Macaulay surveyed the areas in 1912 and tendered the survey as Exhibit “A” in suit No. 124 of 1912 between Fafunmi Vs Osu Apena and Iwaya Farmland covered by the plan with a registered title No. 45 Page 45 Vol. 2212.

    Akindele said there were over 50 cases in courts over the land, adding that the descendants were ready to pursue the cares to logical conclusions.

    Those with genuine documents have been asked to come forward for verification  “else, the descendants will be left with no other option than to recover the land”.

    Akindele said the descendants were now acting after clearing a lot of issue left by Madam Tinubu who died without a will or a child.

    He said the Lagos State government did not compensate his clients for the land it took over for public good.

    The descendants explained that their action was to set the records straight and not for traditional or political advantage.