Families cry out over attack by land grabbers

The Ominiha and Shosoyan families of Ibeshe in Ikorodu area of Lagos State have cried out to the governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to rescue them from hoodlums led by an alleged land grabber, Kamurudeen Lamina, alias Sir K. q

The families accused policemen at Zone 2 headquarters in Onikan and the Monitoring Unit, Ikorodu, of aiding Lamina, said to have unleashed terror in Ikorodu, Ogijo and other Lagos-Ogun border communities since 2005. They also appealed to Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, to come to their rescue by ensuring that land grabbers hiding in those border towns to unleash mayhem on helpless residents were flushed out.

According to the families who spoke through their lawyer, Adefolaju Oloko, their outcry followed Lamina’s alleged illegal encroachment on their 138.70 acres of land at the instance of a family that has no claim to the land. Their worries, they said, were connected to several killings and maiming of innocent people for over a decade by land grabbers, which has forced many to desert their homes and property.

Oloko said the families’ property development partner, Charles Nwadiani, was being hounded by policemen. Narrating their ordeals, one Mark Wale said: “We have been living in fear. Nine years ago, land grabbers unleashed mayhem in Ikorodu and raided about 37 communities killing and maiming people. In 2005, Igbo Olomu, a boundary community between Lagos and Ogun States, was raided and the invaders displaced the people. In 2006 it was raided the second time.

“The carnage in Igbodu community led to the death of 78-year-old Kokumo Hassan who was strangled, while 13-year-old Nike Ajayi was allegedly raped to death. All these attacks have been linked to Sir K and his boys. In some he was directly involved and in others, his boys did it. He has been arrested several times but each time, he is curiously released to the society to continue his criminality.”

However, Lamina denied all the allegations against him, insisting he was neither a murderer nor land grabber. He said: “I am not a land-grabber but a property developer, car dealer and hotelier. I am not into land grabbing. People meet me always to help them to develop their lands. The problem is that people are jealous of my progress. They want to kill me and take over all the properties I am managing.

“One of such persons carrying fake news about me is Mr. Charles Nwadiani. My problem started when a family who gave him a land to develop took it from him and gave it to me to start managing for them. Since then, I have not had rest. Every year, he and his accomplices cook up one story or the other to rope me. There was no allegation they did not make against me. They said that I killed, maimed and even raped a 13-year-old girl, and that I am a jail breaker.

“There is nothing they have not done to frustrate me out of business but I always come out clean. In 2010, my mother was kidnapped in my town in Ogun State. I paid N15 million to secure her release. When some cult groups killed and maimed themselves during a festival in Ogun, they accused me of being responsible and I spent three years doing the case. In 2013, I was doing my child’s naming when operatives from the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) came to pick me that I killed someone. They charged me for an offence I did not commit; yet I came out clean.”