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By Christopher Oji
A member of the Board of Directors of the Advanced Engineering Consultants, Mr. Tunji Soetan, has denied allegations by the protesting residents of Osun Egbado in the Araromi Ale, Badagry, Lagos, that Alhaji Ganiyu Owoeye (a.k.a Garba) invaded their homes with land grabbers.
Soetan, who claimed that the protesters were playing politics and misinforming the government about the true situation of things, challenged the protesters to present documents to back their claims of ownership of the vast expanse of land.
While reacting to the protest at Lagos State government secretariat by the residents on Tuesday, Soetan said the residents were only trying to misinform the state government and garner undue sympathy from the unsuspecting members of the public.
A group of people had, on Tuesday, protested at Alausa, Ikeja Secretariat of the state government alleging that Owoeye had invaded their land with some land grabbers. The company director, in a swift reaction, said the acclaimed residents, in their bid to twist the facts about the ownership of the land, resorted to blackmailing the state government by claiming to be members of the All Progressives Congress.
Soetan said: “We bought the land from the original owners, Oshoko – Iyonbu family in 1995, and in the process of getting the necessary documents, we discovered that the land is under the acquisition of the Lagos State government.
“Our next line of action was to regularise the purchase of the land with the Lagos State government. We made an application to the Land Registry Office in Alausa.
“The Lagos State government approved our application and allocated the land to us and issued us with the Certificate of Occupancy No 94/94 /2009T. When we were ready to begin construction work on the land, some miscreants and land grabbers came from nowhere and demolished our structures on the land.
“We had to take them up at the court and the lower court gave a judgment in our favour, but they appealed the judgment and, again, lost at the Appeal Court in Suit No BD /25M 2013.
“The hoodlums continued to destroy our structures despite the court granting us possession and the Lagos State Government issuing us Form O. Sheriffs from the court were in the community to execute the possession order, when the hoodlums attacked them again and injured the government officials.
“Some of them were arrested and charged before a court of valid jurisdiction. The case is still ongoing. They are just trying to misinform the public.
“We don’t need to take any land grabber to our land after the lower and Appeal Courts have ruled in our favour. We only sold part of the land to the Precious Galloway Company, by Alhaji Ganiu Owoeye alias Garba. He is not a land grabber on our land as claimed by the people.
“Everywhere they had gone to, they always failed, including courts. They now want to use politics to trick the Lagos State government by claiming to be APC members. I am also a card-carrying member of the party. I want to challenge them to present any document that can show that they are the owners of the land.”
