Community laments invasion by land grabbers

It was a story of tears and pains for members of Oko Ado Village, Ado Nla town in Eti-Osa Local Council of Lagos State when suspected hoodlums and people allegedly close to the state government invaded their community to forcefully deny them access to their property, which they claim was their landed inheritance.

Some of them have since resigned to fate while others are looking up to the courts, which they believe is the final arbiter between them and the intruders.

However, some youths at the weekend decided to take their destiny in their hands and took to the streets with placards, chanting solidarity songs and appealing to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for speedy intervention.

Some of the messages in the placards read: ‘Ambode, we count on you to urgently remove these landgrabbers from our land’; ‘This land is ours and we intend to pass it onto our children’; ‘Our future is being stolen from us, Ambode please intervene’; among others.

One of the victims while recounting how some strange people accosted him on his land and threatened him not to return there again, said: “It was like pronouncing my death verdict because that is the only hope I have in life.”

Speaking on behalf of the of Igbaro Oteshade royal family, Prince Malik Eshinlokun, alleged that the state government has reduced them to paupers in spite of the fact that their family produced the first Oba of Lagos.

He lamented that some powerful cabals were allocating their land to third parties without their consent, but according to a source who pleaded anonymity, going by the recent disposition of the governor towards land-grabbers in the state, “the matter would be properly investigated,” he promised.