Akowonwado Family Begs Ogun Gov, AG To Stop Land Grabbing Taskforce From Biased Arrests, Assaults

 Akowonwado Family Begs Ogun Gov, AG To Stop Land Grabbing Taskforce From Biased Arrests, Assaults

SEGUN ALAYANDE

Members of the Akowonwado families of Saari Village in Ado-Odo Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State has issued a strong SOS to Prince Dapo Abiodun, the State Governor and Oluwasina Ogungbade (SAN), the Attorney General and the State Commissioner for Justice to safe them from relentless attacks, assaults and indiscriminate arrests by members of the Ogun land grabbing Taskforce.

The family is aseeking government's quick intervention to save them and other innocent residents of Saari village in the Ado Odo Ota Local Government Area of the State from the ongoing assaults and terror unleashed on them by the Police Officers attached to the Taskforce Combatting Land Grabbing Activities in the office of the Attorney General of the State.

According to Micheal Erinle, a principal member of Akowonwado family,  who spoke with some Journalists said, "on Friday April 11, Policemen attached to the Taskforce with Rafiu Salako, Dauda Adeniji and Moradeyo Femope accompanied with thugs, miscreants and seasoned land grabbers bearing matchetes, Knives, guns and all manner of weapons.

"They swooped on our community and started shooting sporadically, harassing and assaulting everyone in sight which resulted in the shooting of one Fatal Dauda an innocent block maker in the mouth, who is in a critical condition in Ota General Hospital and arrested four innocent young men who are presently in custody." He said.

Explaining further, he said, "Trouble started for us when one Rafiu Salako on behalf of a group of people who claim to be a family in Saari village wrote a malicious petition to the Taskforce Against Land Grabbing Matters in the Attorney General's office, accusing us of grabbing lands that originally belonged to us and  affirmed to be so by a supreme court judgement obtained in 2004 and in 2015, we obtained possession order, enabling us to physically take possession of the land.

"In that year we came to the villages affected by the judgement including Saari to officially mark and paste notification of the possession order on the affected villages and areas, announcing our takeover  in due course. Rafiu Salako then engaged some thugs led by one Nuru Obasanya to attack our Children who were peacefully doing the markings and were brutally attacked, using all manner of violent weapons to forcefully evict us and we had to abandon the Village since then till 2023 when we decided to take back the village.

After some effort we took back our land in 2023, but they went about making several allegations and organised several attacks, but we survived it, forcing them to write the petition to the Police Taskforce who is now being used to unleash this terror and mayhem on us." Erinle stressed.

Erinle further explained that after the petition was written they invited both parties to come for a meeting at the Attorney General's office in Abeokuta and they went with all the court judgements and papers indicating that the land belonged to them and surprisingly the other party did not present any proof to back their claim.

Erinle in his words said, "for lack of evidence by the other party the Taskforce said they will convene another meeting and we waited endlessly for further invitation but we did not hear a word from them, only to be told later afterwards that we had missed two invitations for meeting with the opposing family and we were left wondering when were the invites sent, because in reality we are not aware such invitations were sent to us." He said bewildered.

He quickly added, "we were also surprised that on April 3, we were called for another meeting slated for Friday April 4, it was such a short notice and non of our key family members are around, since we considered it important, we had to send Oba Samson Adeleke, the Olu of Okikilu to attend the meeting, it was resolved at the meeting that the Taskforce will come to inspect the communities on Monday April 7, to ascertain the situation on ground.

"The Taskforce led by Supo Fatai Okunola came on that Monday accompanied by members of the opposing family and we were there too, going round the Communities they saw the possession order from the Supreme Court which were pasted on the houses and the coordinate markings indicating areas covered in the judgement we had obtained.

"As we make our tour of the disputed aread, we could sense the unfavourable disposition of the members of the Taskforce towards as they uttered subtle threats that the opposing family would have to be accommodated on the land.

"As, a family we are not totally opposed to the people living on the disputed lands, but the fact is that these people do not make their residence there, they only come in to sell plots of land and take the monies to wherever they wish." He lamented.

Adding, "after the inspection on Monday, they asked us to come for another meeting on the following Friday which we agreed to Oba Samson Adeleye wanted to go with our lawyer. Our lawyer however said he would not be available and he immediately wrote officially to the Taskforce asking for the meeting to be extended to Friday April 24, only for them to return to our community on the purported Friday April 11 with Rafiu Salako, Dauda Adeniji who is claiming to be the head of the Akore Family and Moradeyo Femope accompanied with thugs, miscreants and seasoned land grabbers bearing matchetes, Knives, guns and all manner of weapons, shooting sporadically, harassing and assaulting everyone in sight."

DAILY INDEPENDENT decided to call Supo Okunola the said leader of the Taskforce who said they did serve the family invitations to the meetings but refused to attend, while also claiming that the judgement they got did not include Saari Village.

Oba Samson Adeleye, the Olu of Okikilu Kingdom, in Ota, Ogun State added his voice in the defence of the Akowonwado family, describing the allegations as nothing but malicious, a calculated attempt at distorting the facts and smear on the good names of law abiding people.

Oba Adeleye said, “the surveyed portion of lands belong to our ancestors with concrete evidence along with detailed Court Judgements to the level of the Supreme Court which affirms our ownership of these community lands as inheritance from our Ancestors.

“Sequence upon several litigations instigated by the Akore family and the present people, Supreme Court has judged on the matter on suit number SC 259/2001 on 21st of May 2004 as lacking evidence of ownership or entitlement by the Salako and Akore Families which were natives of Abeokuta in Ogun State. The community lands in contest, however is situated on Awori-land at Atan Community, So the question of their ownership was blatantly refuted by the court of law to the levels of Supreme Court in 2004." He revealed.

He added that the claims of displacement and forceful possession by the Akowonwado families, comprising seven villages of; Ilasa, Oko-Omi, Okikilu, Erinle, Ore, Akinleye and Saari villages where they claim to have been occupied for over 200 years by their ancestors after migrating from Ile-Ife to resettle on the land is nothing but a fallacious claim that should be totally disregarded."