Community Seeks Police Action to Dislodge Armed Squatters in Lagos

Segun Atanda/

Residents of Ifako community, in Lagos, have raised the alarm over growing activities of some hoodlums in their midst.

According to some of the residents, strange youths are setting up camps near the flyover at the tail end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway that is fast becoming a hotbed of vices.

Attempts to dislodge the suspected hoodlums have allegedly pitched some of the residents against the traditional ruler – Oloworo of Oworonsoki, Oba Bashiru Oluwatoyin.

They claimed that he has a shed near a wide expanse of land along the highway that is harboring the strange youths.

“You see them in clusters, hanging around all day and smoking hemp. They once attacked and injured me. Just yesterday evening, they gathered near my house and were shooting sporadically,” a community leader, Elder Akinola Oloruntoba, said.

Oba Oluwatoyin and four men were recently quizzed by the police following a report by Oloruntoba, who said he was attacked while inspecting his land at Ifako along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

“I was beaten up mercilessly by the thugs. Though I escaped death by the whiskers, they left me with a swollen mouth and broken teeth,” he said.

Investigations showed that those setting up camps in the community are squatters allegedly deployed by the traditional ruler who is laying claim to lands in the area.

When contacted, Oba Oluwatoyin denied the allegation. He said: “I was invited by the police on Thursday and I went there to clear myself. I did not send anybody to beat an old man. The Lagos State Ministry of Justice gave me the land.”

Narrating how he was assaulted, Oloruntoba said, “I was at home when I got information that the Oloworo of Oworo, Oba Tijani, brought a surveyor to my land at Ifako area. I ran to the land five plots along the Lagos Ibadan Expressway. This is a land that we have Supreme Court judgment delivered by Justice Oputa in favour of David Taiwo Elabanjo in 1986. I have all the documents on the land and I wrote a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The EFCC invited him and two of the EFCC men came to see the land in question. Shortly after they left, thugs he hired attacked me and my lawyers. The thugs beat me up mercilessly and I was left with a swollen mouth and a broken teeth. I have been treating myself in the hospital.

“I wrote a petition to the acting Lagos State commissioner of police, Mr Imohimi Edgal, and he directed the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of State Criminal Investigations Department, Panti, at Yaba, to look into the matter. But, the Oba did not show up. He wrote a petition to the X-Squad Unit and they took over the case. He told me that I am from Ondo State and I cannot own land in Lagos State.

“I saw it as a clear case of land grabbing and I wrote a letter to the Chairman land grabber’s task-force, but nothing came out of it. Nigeria is not a lawless country where traditional rulers can use hired thugs to take over people’s land with impunity. The Oba built a house for his thugs close to the land. He went as far as sponsoring the thugs to break down the fence we erected. I had to erect another one.

“The thugs, in their devious bid to scare me, went to my block molding factory and destroyed over one hundred blocks. As I am talking to you, his tipper loads of sand and gravels are on the land for him to start construction as he has written all over the bridge that he owns the land. This is a land I have all the documents. I have been living in Lagos for more than 60 decades and I pay my taxes here. This land is in Ifako not Oworo. I did not buy the land from him. I am appealing to the government to save my soul.”

The deputy spokesperson at the SFU, ASP Pauline Emmanuel, confirmed the arrests. She said: “Oba Bashiru Oluwatoyin was arrested yesterday. He came to the station and wrote a statement. Police recovered bag of hemps in his house. Four persons were arrested alongside the Oba. He was granted bail and has been given another date to report at the station.”

During a second visit to the police at SFU on November 1, Oba Oluwatoyin, admitted before reporters that the land in dispute was outside his domain. But he argued that he was the person who installed the community chief in Ifako and other neighboring communities, and because of that he is the ruler of the people, not the land.

Now that the police appear to have settled the rift among the feuding parties, the larger community is still battling with the headache of the gun-wielding hoodlums who have set up joints in the area.

“This community has always been peaceful until the emergence of these thugs here. Now they do all sorts of things, including shooting, to put fear into residents. The police should move in and help us,” one of the residents, Mrs Adijat Sabitu, said.

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