Community leaders from Ajambata Village in Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State have called on the state government to fully implement the state anti-land grabbing law to forestall a breakdown of law and order.
The community leaders led by the Baale of Ajambata, Chief Oluremi Odunaro, and six others, said the activities of land grabbers, who had devised new means of forcibly taking over people’s land, had assumed a dangerous dimension, which should be urgently curtailed.
Odunaro alleged that on several occasions the land grabbers, who usually connived with some law enforcement agents in their desperate bids to grab other people’s lands, would unleash mayhem on the residents and thereafter cause fictitious petitions to be written to the police or government agencies alleging threat to life and destruction of farm lands.
He said, “We are appealing to the Ogun State Government and especially the head of the taskforce on anti-land grabbing and Secretary to the State Government, Barrister Taiwo Adeoluwa to effectively implement the law.
“Some people suspected to be land speculators are now terrorizing the whole place with the backing of the police. We want the government to take drastic action against this land grabbers, as they continue to terrorise us everyday.
“We continue to live in fear everyday. We want government to come to our aid in resolving this issue by looking at it properly. We are passionately appealing to Governor Amosun to come to our rescue, so that we don’t lose our lives.
“The case at hand is a fictitious petition written by the Baale of Orita, Chief Dele Taiwo; Baale of Joga, Chief Olaose Akinsanya; and an indigene of Orita, Sule Adelakun, against myself and five other indigenes of my village, the Otun Baale of Ajambata, Messers Tunde Odunaro, Rotimi Akinde, Idowu Dada and Dare Odunaro.”
Continuing, he said, “The petition is written to the Intervention Squad at Obada, Abeokuta, alleging threat to life and malicious damage to their property.
“I am a retired teacher and a responsible Nigeria citizen, how could I have engaged in such immoral act?”
“The fictitious petitioners, after selling all their lands in my village, wanted to start selling other people’s lands, a move I vehemently opposed.
“The next thing I saw was an invitation from the police in Abeokuta for an interrogation. The invitation came through Chief Adeleke Akinde and Idowu Dada, who were arrested by the police the previous day, taken to Abeokuta and granted bail the same day.”
The Baale, therefore, appealed to government to give teeth to the anti-land grabbing law as done in neighbouring Lagos State in order to put a stop to the activities of land grabbers and speculators in the state.
