Hundreds of residents and business owners have been thrown into confusion following their inability to ply the Magodo Phase 2 Estate gates to navigate their destinations in and out of the estate located in the Shangisha area of Lagos.
The Magodo Residents Association closed the estate gates after suspected landgrabbers led by the police invaded the estate to claim possession of properties in the estate on Tuesday.
During the invasion, the suspected land grabbers, while being fortified by the police, used red and brown inks to inscribe possession taken on various properties in the estate.
The Supreme Court had reportedly delivered a judgment on February 10, 2012, mandating the Lagos State government to give back 549 plots to the original landowners of the area before it was acquired by others over 38 years ago.
“These cases ID795/88, CAL 225/96, SC112/02 started in the High Court of Lagos in June 1988 and ended in the Supreme Court on February 10, 2012, all in favour of the Association,” chairman of the Shangisha Landlords Association, Chief Adebayo Adeyiga said.
“Up to this moment, the judgment creditors, that is, the Shangisha Landlords Association, have not been able to reap the fruit of their legal victory because of the uncooperative and recalcitrant attitude of the judgment debtors,” he stated.
But the Legal Adviser, Magodo Residents Association, Tunji Abdulhameed, said suspected land grabbers were about invading the estate with a bulldozer when the estate management closed estate 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.”
Despite the estate gates being closed, residents and businessmen flooded the gate in a desperate attempt to gain entry, with stranded victims lamenting missing their various appointments due to the condition.
Also, the effect of the gate closure led to a backlog of traffic that affected vehicular movements around the Magodo Phase 2 area.
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 was not aware of this siege.”
Via Punch, Guardian Nigeria and GoldMyne TV
