Community leader accuses Lagos Task Force of illegal arrest

THE Baale of Oko Olomi, Ibeju-Lekki Local Council, Lateef Eleku, has accused Lagos State Task Force on Land Grabbing of illegal arrest of 22 members of the Eleku family and community members.

Eleku said the landowners were arrested on the order of Tolls System Company Limited.

He said: “We want to inform the public that all the 22 people whose names were listed in the report are not land grabbers but landowners and members of various landowners families in Oko Olomi village.”

Eleku said Toll System in 2016 invaded 14 villages in Oko Olomi and claimed that their allocation was more than the 308.165 hectares, which the government gave them.

He said toll system lied that their allocation was 1,561.20 hectares, they thereby demolished over 1,000 houses in 2016, only the communities’ shrines and burial sites were not pulled down.

Solicitor to the community, Kunle Fakayejo, said: “I was briefed on this matter in 2021 and from our findings, we discovered that the area was invaded in 2016. The land grabbers were eventually waded off after we did a petition to the Inspector General of Police who assigned the case to Assistant IGP, in Alagbon Police station.

Police investigation proved that it was 308.165, hectares that the Lagos State government allocated to them but they suddenly claimed that it was 1561.20 hectares. Every documentation confirmed that Oko Olomi were the customary owners of Oko Olomi land before Toll system came to encroach it.”
However, Chief Legal officer to Toll Systems, Mr. Ugochukwu Ndubusi, said Oko-Olomi community did not have title deed.

“It is blatant lie, the Lagos state Landgrabbing task force came to clear the place. If I don’t have the Certificate of Occupancy, the Attorney General wouldn’t have intervened on my behalf,” he said.