6th August, 2012
The activities of land grabbers, popularly known as Omonile in recent times in Lagos State, southwest Nigeria have given the state government lots of concern. The land grabbers have been ruthless in the way they deal with land owners who want to erect structures, even after they have obtained the necessary title documents from the government.
The so-called land grabbers usually employ thugs to harass landowners whenever they want to lay the foundation, roof their houses and/or put up a fence around their property, demanding huge sums of money illegally. Failure to pay will attract the wrath of the land grabbers as they could demolish the house in question, injure or even kill the landowner.
Lagosians have come to see the issue of Omonile as a thing to live with, succumbing to their pressures. Many of them are forced to part with large sums of money to avert the wrath of the land grabbers.
Recently, a land grabber sacked an entire community and chased its residents away. The intervention of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit, helped the residents to regained their houses.
Also recently, land grabbers were arrested by the taskforce in Ogba area of Lagos State where they manhandled an old man in attempt to take over his property illegally. In Ikorodu and Ajah and other developing areas, land grabbers reign supreme. They use dangerous weapons such as guns, cutlasses, broken bottles, knives and charms to unleash terror on innocent land owners who refuse to part with large sums of money.
The unbecoming activities of land grabbers have reared up in the mainland. It has crept to places like Ikeja, Ogba, Agege, and Oko-Oba. And the Lagos State Government is worried over the development and has decided to take the bull by the horns in order to stamp out land grabbers from the system.
Governor Babatunde Fashola has, therefore, ordered the taskforce to ensure that Lagosians intending to erect their structures are not harassed and disturbed by omonile. The taskforce had been raiding and arresting suspected land grabbers and charging them to court.
According to taskforce Chairman, Bayo Sulaiman, a Superintendent of Police, the current trend is becoming unbearable. “If you want to lay the foundation of your house, deck your house, put windows in your house or roof your house, they will confront you as omonile. This is common in areas like Ikorodu and Ajah.
“They have now got the effrontery to come to the mainland. They have now come to Oregun, Agege and we have warned them to stay off these areas. Sometime ago, the Lagos State Government published that activities of land grabbers will no longer be tolerated in the state,” he said.
Sulaiman said while trying to control their activities and protect innocent people, some of the land grabbers who are influential would begin to write petitions against the taskforce to discredit the office.
“Apart from complaints from the public, some oba have asked us to come to their aid. The Olu of Agege is asking us to come to his aid as land grabbers have invaded Agege. In Ajah area, land grabbers have chased an entire community away but we restore the land back to them. We will not allow land grabbers to turn this state into a banana republic,’ he stated.
The recent case of land grabbing in which Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has to personally get involved was the Olayiwola Street, New Oko-Oba, where land grabbers were alleged to have demolished structures at will while dangling a purported judgment claimed to have been got from a high court and a magistrate court in Lagos.
On 5 July, 2012 residents of New Oko-Oba petitioned Fashola over the wilful destroying of houses on Olayiwola Street by armed land grabbers. The residents, through the New Oko-Oba Community Development Association, CDA, in a letter to the governor and signed by the Chairman, Mr. S.O. Ajijola and the General Secretary, Mr. S.A Olatunde, said that on 15 June, 2012, some influential people led policemen and thugs to demolish their houses.
Based on the petition, Fashola ordered the taskforce to wade into the matter. Officials of the Taskforce stormed the area and arrested 14 people suspected to be land grabbers in connection with illegal demolition of properties in the community.
Fashola ordered the taskforce to act appropriately and it stormed the area and arrested some suspects but the main target, one Mr. Taiwo Ologunde and Kehinde Adeosun were said not to be around, while 14 others suspected to be working for him were picked and would be arraigned in court today for malicious damage.
Residents of the area wanted the governor to act promptly. According to the petition, one Alhaji Gafaru Arowolo and Kehinde Adeosun led 30 fully armed policemen and about 50 thugs to Olayiwo Street, New Oko-Oba.
“They immediately embarked on destruction of shops and houses, while other houses were marked for demolition. They were dangling a purported High Court judgment in suit No. ID1313/98 said to be in their favour.
“The most pathetic one was the complete demolition of the late Mrs. Oluunmilayo Monsor’s two houses at number 47 of Olayiwola Street during which her tomb was levelled,” they said.
They alleged that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria delivered in April 2003 (Part II) published by Lowbreed Limited Law Review, vested ownership of the land at New Oko-Oba, Iju and its environs as that of Fred Williams family, saying that they bought their properties from the Fred Williams family.
The community, in the petition, therefore, demanded from the governor an urgent intervention and calling the alleged land grabbers to order, adding that they should be restrained from committing more atrocities in the area.
They also wanted an investigation into the activities of the said 30 fully armed policemen from Area ‘G’ who gave cover for the demolition, adding that “we have been living in this community in the last 30 years and we all have our deeds of conveyance dated back to 1977.”
Acting on the petition, the taskforce stormed the area and effected the arrest of suspected culprits while residents in the area rejoiced over the arrest.
One of the victims, a septuagenarian, who spoke under anonymity for fear of harassment, recounted her experience. According to her, she had been living peacefully in the area for over 30 years when suddenly some influential people with their thugs came in the middle of the night and erected a fence dividing her property into two.
The petition also added that another victim on the street was one Mr. and Mrs. John “both now in the USA with tenants in the block of four three-bedroom flats at No. 43, Olayiwola Street. They pulled down the shops shielding the empty plot within the compound and fenced it off from the main building.
“At this juncture, our lives and that of our immediate family members are no longer safe, hence this our S.O.S. to the governor before the die is cast.”
According to Sulaiman, the Olayiwola issue was so pathetic that the taskforce waded in on the order of the governor, saying that “when we got there, we arrested 14 suspects and charged 12 to the Magistrate Court in Ikeja. We met excavators and bulldozer for demolition by the land grabbers on ground.”
The taskforce boss stated that the lawyer to the suspected land grabbers presented a survey plan that was rejected at the Surveyor General’s office claiming ownership of the land in the area, saying that the judgment of the Supreme Court, giving land ownership in the area to the Fred Williams family was supreme and should be respected.
He said the High Court judgment relied on by the suspected land grabbers was not on the Fred Williams land which the Supreme Court had adjudicated on, saying that it concerns the Olarokun families.
Bayo added that the land grabbers now paraded the High Court judgment as if it was in the case of the Fred Williams land and used it to demolish houses built by those who bought land from the authentic owner, the Fred Williams family.
The taskforce chairman said clients to the Olarokun family had written a petition against him and his office on the matter.
In the petition, the solicitor to the Olarokun family alleged that the taskforce boss was acting against court judgment in bringing his men to stop them from enforcing the court judgement, saying that the taskforce came to the area to demolish their client’s fence.
“Anywhere judgment has been obtained or executed, Mr. Bayo Sulaiman is the person usually hired by the opponents to use his office to arrest those who have the judgment, detain them at Alausa, Ikeja and in exchange for their freedom, he makes them give undertaking to abandon the judgment.
“When this is happening, people think that it is the government or Governor of Lagos State that is at work. No. It is Mr. Bayo Sulaiman using the instrumentality of the taskforce to do whatever he likes in Lagos Stat, no matter how illegal,” the petition alleged.
The petitioner made several allegations which could not be substantiated, and were immediately dismissed by the taskforce chairman. The petition was not signed by anyone.
Sulaiman said the taskforce was still after other members of the gang and that they needed to tell the public what they knew about the illegal demolition at Olayiwola and that the taskforce would not be threatened by any frivolous petition as the body was carrying out orders from the governor.
Also recently, some omonile were arrested for encroaching on school land in Ojo area of Lagos. They had invaded the premises of Ojo Junior and Senior Secondary School and Community Agric Junior and Senior Secondary School in Ojo and were using labourers to fence off portion of the land before they were arrested.
The two omonile and 24 labourers arrested were charged to court for gabbing government’s land. It was later discovered that the Surveyor General Office had spelt out to them that the land in question is under acquisition of the government.
The principals of the affected schools in Ojo had petitioned the government over the unlawful encroachment on their schools, while the taskforce was directed to move in and arrested the intruders
However, Sulaiman appealed to residents of the state not to give money to omonile while building their houses, saying that they should report such cases to the police or the taskforce for appropriate action.
“Land grabbers should stay away from Lagos State and we are getting more information about them. I want to tell other members of the gang all over the state that we are coming after them,” he warned.
—Kazeem Ugbodaga