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By Rita Ugo
Members of the Chief Abiodun Smith family of Lagos Island, Lagos State, have sent a save-our-souls to President Bola Tinubu and Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun to come to their rescue, as they allege interference by Zone 2 Police Command, Lagos, in the private affairs of their family estate.
Four members of the family, Lekan Kehinde, Oluwole Rasak, Olanrewaju Oyegunle and Lukman Adegbero, have appealed to Tinubu and Egbetokun to wade into the matter and prevail on Zone 2 Police Command to let their family to resolve the civil matter without police interference.
The aggrieved men, who claimed to be of the same family as a retired IGP, said they were not happy with the overbearing attitude and interference of the police in the matter.
Spokesman for the family, Lekan Kehinde, alleged that the Zone 2 Police Command was interfering in their internal affairs, where there was no complaint of threat or physical attack from any of the parties to the family matter.
Kehinde said that there was an estate left behind by their grandfather, Chief Smith, for all the children from four units.
He noted that some members of the family, particularly one of the most educated among them, were planning to deny others their legitimate rights of having a share from the proceeds of the property left behind by their father.
Kehinde said the head of the family was a woman, while his late mother was the last child of the Smith family.
He explained that the money generated from the property was always deposited in the family’s estate account, which was shared every August to all the children without gender discrimination.
Kehinde said, “My mother, when she was alive, was an active manager of the estate, until her death. After her demise, I was appointed by the family to represent my mother’s unit in the family and I automatically became a signatory to documents as regards the property.
“Recently, I received a letter from Zone 2 Police Command, Onikan, Lagos, inviting me for a fact-finding exercise in the interest of justice and fairness in my family, but I was not briefed of any offence.
“The letter requested that I should report to the officer in charge of the Community Policing Section, but it was a different ballgame when I got to Zone 2.
“After listening to the police, I asked, When has it become police responsibility to dabble or decide on what to do in a family matter of this nature? I was threatened and coerced to dance to the dictates of the police to sign a document brought by an unknown agent purportedly contracted by an unknown family member.
“It is on this note that we are calling on President Ahmed Tinubu, the Police Service Commission, the Inspector-General of Police and all well-meaning Nigerians to caution and prevail on the police at Zone 2 to stop interfering in our family matters.
“My life is now in danger. A top police officer warned me to stay away from my inheritance. I am afraid that something might happen to any of my family members, especially those who are fighting this cause with me.
“It is not within the purview of the police to interfere in our family matters and we want to sound it clear that we will not succumb to the threats and dictates of the Zone 2 Command.
“We are from the Smith family of Lagos Island. We called this press conference to prevent miscarriage of justice.”
He alleged that some family members went to the police because they had the connections of serving and retired senior police officers.
“We have family issues. We are trying to resolve them within the family level. While we were trying to resolve them, I got a call from one inspector from Zone 2. He told me that I had an invitation and it was a fact-finding invitation in the interest of justice and fairness.
“He sent me the invite on my phone. I read through it. I went there with some other members of the family present here so as to share more light on the issue at hand.
“When I got to Zone 2, they told me that an estate agent wrote a petition against me. I was surprised that an agent I didn’t even know wrote a petition against me.
“Now the agent said the property has been handed over to him to manage on behalf of the family. The agent said that whenever he went to the tenants, they would refuse to cooperate with him, saying that they would only cooperate when they saw me.
“The agent said the police should compel me to follow him to the said tenants and ask them to cooperate with him.
“Now, we asked, what concerns the police with our property? The police did not accuse me of committing any crime whatsoever. While at Zone 2, I was surprised to see that the head of the unit in charge of the case, Tony, a former personal assistant to a retired IGP. That is a very serious coincidence. The second surprise was that they said I had to sign a bail bond before I could leave on administrative bail. I now said, you people invited me here for a fact-finding meeting. Was I under any arrest, was I suspected of any crime?
“However, one of my uncles here at this conference agreed to sign on my behalf. That was how everything started. I have been going to Zone 2 for the meeting and l always go there with all documents relating to the properties.
“All the documents I brought to the police station, I ensured they acknowledged them for me, which they did. After the OC in charge, who was the PA to retired IGP Musiliu Smith left service, the officer who took over gave us fairness.
“In the course of the meetings, I met the estate agent; the police asked him if he knew me and he said no that he had never met me before. They asked him, why are you writing a petition against a person you don’t know? He said one of my cousins, Prof Oluwole Smith, SAN, asked him to do the petition.
“The officer asked them, why are you writing to the police, the man can call his junior brother and iron out the issue, but the senior lawyer was shouting on them to do what he asked them to do.
“Within our family, we have estate accounts where all payments are made for over eight years. Every year, we share and document how payments were made and everyone signs.
“Another surprise I have received in this matter was a call I got from a number I did not know. The call was from AIG Adegoke Fayoade of Zone 2. He requested that I should come and have a meeting with him.
I asked if I should come with members of my family, he said it was not necessary. But because I always tell other members of the family every activity relating to the family properties, I informed them and they said it was not wise for me to go there alone. So, I went there with two of my brothers.
“To my surprise, when we got there, we met other people, about eight, including a former PA to IGP Musiliu Smiths, Mr. Remi, who is not a member of my family. It occurred to me that the AIG actually lied to me not to come with anyone else.
“All the documents that I have been submitting in the case, I went there with extra copies. I said, Okay, now that we are all here, there is nothing bad for police mediation, but it is not compulsory that the police mediate, because there is no conflict.
“I now noticed that the AIG had made up his mind what he wanted to do. He hardly let my party talk. He did not tell us to see evidence of the property or call the OC to bring the file on the case, rather, he refused to listen to us.
“He dabbled in our family matters that did not concern the police. When we told him that the people who reported the case were the people that had questions to answer, he never allowed us to talk.
“The AIG said certain things: he asked me what my name was, I said Lekan Kehinde. He asked how I was related to the Smith family. I told him that my late mum was Miss Smith, like some of my cousins.
“The father of IGP Musiliu Smith was the first-born. My late mum was the last born. He said that we were of female line in the family, we were not entitled to the family estate. He warned me not to be seen around my grandfather’s estate, else, he would deal with me.
“He is a Yorubaman. I have never seen such a miscarriage. He asked me to go and cooperate with the estate agent. Where is that done and how is this matter the case for the Nigeria Police? The other party is using the police against me, they have female parents as Smith’s grandchildren.”
Reacting, AIG zone 2, Command, Fayaode Adegoke, ,said the police have not done anything wrong intervening in a family dispute when they were called upon to do so, as “there is nothing serious about the issue.”
“The family were brokering peace among themselves. They invited an agent to take over the management of their estate. Some of them called for the intervention of the police. So I don’t know what is bad about brokering peace among family members. My men did not do anything wrong, “ he said.
In the briefing to the press, Kehinde said, “Why we called the press is that we are using this medium to appeal to the IGP, Police Service Commission, all 200 million Nigerians to advise the AIG, Zone 2, to keep away from our family matters.
“The AIG is not a law unto himself that will issue a restraining order on my family property.
“I want to call the attention of Nigerians that, should anything happen to me and my brothers, he should be held responsible. They want to intimidate us and take the property that belongs to us. And we refused to be intimidated.
“My late grandfather had a will. The will did not recognize male or female children. The will said ‘each child.’ That is what we have been doing over the years. We are four lines in sharing his will, Baba IGP Musiliu Smith is one, Prof. Oluwole Smith is two, Leke Smith, and myself, we are four.
“We share all the money in the family estate account every August. I have the documents. After payment, everyone signs. We have shared the money up to 2024 and everyone, including those on the other side, collected their money and signed.
“They are using the police against me because my mum is late and they want to take what belongs to me for themselves.”
