Confusion as land grabbers, police invades Magodo estate

Suspected land grabbers led by men of the Nigerian police force have invaded Magodo Estate, Lagos, on Tuesday to claim possession of the property.

Magodo Residents Association had closed the estate gates when the suspected land grabbers, accompanied by the police, used red and brown inks to inscribe possession taken on various property in the estate.

This has thrown so many residents and business owners into confusion as they are unable to ply the Magodo Phase 2 estate gates to get to their destinations in and out of the estate located in the Shangisha area of Lagos State.

Speaking to The Punch, the Legal Adviser of Magodo Residents Association, Tunji Abdulhameed, said the suspected land grabbers were about to invade the estate with a bulldozer when the estate management closed gates to prevent the action.

He said, “They came around 1 pm yesterday; The land grabbers invaded the estate and the police gave them backing. I asked what they were doing here and the police said they are trying to enforce the judgment.

“I asked for a copy of the judgment but no document was shown to me. What they showed was a newspaper publication which they did themselves to inform the world that they are the owner of the property.

“They had a judgment in 1993 and as far as I am concerned the judgment was not properly captured. The judgment said the government should allocate 549 plots to them with no specification to the area, property, location of the plots of land; in fact, there was nothing to ascertain the property they were talking about.

“The resident associations had a meeting in the evening and thereafter, we just saw a bulldozer at the front of our gate. The police didn’t go and were with them, the bulldozer is still at the other gate. That was why we closed the gate.

“We don’t know whether we are going to open the gate because we don’t know their plan as the land grabbers and policemen are still around. They have a motive they want to achieve; I think the purpose is to use the bulldozer to destroy property.”

The gate closures have caused a backlog of vehicular traffic in the area as residents and businessmen desperately try to gain entry into the estate

The Chairman, Board of Trustee, Magodo Residents Association, Professor Ayodele Ogunye, said residents in the estate had constantly been subjected to different forms of land grabber attacks, adding that the state government should intervene to restore normalcy in the estate.

He said, “I have been living here since 1992 but we have been having problems with land grabbers until this case became enlarged. It is true that the supreme court had given judgment in the favor of the Adeyiga Family; they are to be giving 549 plots but that judgment did not say 549 plots in Magodo.

“Hence, the Lagos State Government allocated plots of land to them along Badagry and Ibeju Lekki. So far, about 300 of them have agreed to take those plots and these people continue to harass us. I have been to Alagbon three times this year on this issue.

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“Yesterday, in the morning, these people besieged us; they said they were bailiffs trying to enforce the supreme court judgment. They are not Lagos State Government bailiffs, if they were, they will wear their jackets. They went to hire some area boys to come in as bailiffs.

“I spoke with the senior officer that led them and he said he got instruction from the top to follow them. We told them to show us the judgment they are enforcing, and they showed our lawyer a press release. A press release is not a court judgment or court instruction that they should bombard us.

“They were marking houses including houses we have been living together since 1992. We gathered that the government was not informed yesterday, how could they come into a government estate without clearance from the governor, the governor said he is not aware of this siege.”