Land grabbers sack 5000 residents from Ogun community

Over 5000 residents of Otun communi­ty in Akute area of Ogun State have been evicted from their homes by land grabbers.

The touts who were allegedly supervised by the accompanying police team, were said to have gone round the community to lock up the buildings and paste notices informing the residents, majority of whom, Sunday Sun learnt, were not at home at the time their properties were taken over.

Sunday Sun gathered that two families had been involved in legal tussle over the ownership of the stretch of land, a development res­idents of the community claimed they were not aware of.

The two families led by Mr. David Akinduro and Mr. Sunday Akinola respectively, it was learnt, had reached an agreement to settle the matter out of court.

The terms of settlement which Sunday Sun gathered was adopted as judgement by an Ogun High Court, reads in part: “That the Akinduro family and their agent, Shiwoku, shall take 4 plots out of every one acre and Akinola family shall take two plots out of every one acre.

“That the occupiers of the said land shall pay its monetary value to entitle them to ratification.

“That the said land being 7 (seven) acres shall be divided into 3 (three) equal parts.”

Sunday Sun’ correspondent who visited the community on Thursday reported that most streets in the community were deserted while the houses were padlocked with notices informing the resi­dents of the court decision.

While the judgement puts the affected land at seven acres, our correspondent gathered that areas affected by the development are far in excess of the specified acres of land.

Speaking in an interview with Sunday Sun, Mr. Chuks Odo, chairman of Durojaye Landlords’ Association, expressed surprise on why the development had to affect houseowners on Durojaye axis of the community, which he claimed was not part of disputed parcels of land.

Mr. Odo informed Sunday Sun that a good number of homeown­ers in the area had secured their Certificates of Occupancy and wondered why they should be subjected to such treatment.

Speaking in the same vein, Col. Gabriel Adetunji Ajayi (retd) who showed Sunday Sun’s correspondent his title documents condemned the development and called on the state government to intervene in the plight of the residents of the community.