By Eniola Daniel
Four members of Chief Abiodun Smith’s family, Lagos Island, have raised the alarm about alleged undue interference in their family estate’s affairs by the Zone 2 Police Command in Lagos State.
 
They are Lekan Kehinde, Oluwole Rasak, Olanrewaju Oyegunle and Lukman Adegbero. The spokesperson for the family, Lekan Kehinde, alleged that the Zone 2 Police was interfering in their internal affairs. He said there was no case of threat or physical attack from any of the parties to the family matter that should warrant police intervention. 
 
Kehinde said that there was an estate left by their grandfather, Chief Smith, for all the children, having equal shares. He lamented that some members of the family want to deny him and some other members their legitimate rights.
 
Kehinde said the head of the family is a woman, and 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 estate account, which was shared every August to all the children without discrimination.
 
Kehinde said that his mother was an active manager of the estate while alive, stressing that after her death, he was appointed by the family to represent his mother’s line in the family and became a signatory to documents.
 
He said that he received a letter from Zone 2, inviting him for a fact-finding exercise in the interest of justice and fairness in his family, but no major offence was stated.
 
According to him, the letter requested that he should report to the officer in charge of the Community Policing Section, but it was a different ball game when he got to Zone 2.
 
“After listening to the police, I asked, when has it become police responsibility to dabble into a family matter of this nature?
“I was threatened and coerced to dance to the dictates of the police and unknown agent purportedly contracted by unknown family members.
 
“It is on this note that we are calling on the authorities, the Police Service Commission, the Inspector-General of Police and all well-meaning Nigerians to caution and prevail on the police at Zone 2 against interfering in our family matters.
 
“My life is now in danger. You can imagine a top police officer warning me to stay away from my inheritance.“It is not within the police purview to interfere in our family matters, and we want to sound it clear that we will not succumb to the threat and dictate of the AIG zone 2,” he said.
 
Kehinde further said that a member of the family was planning to impose an illegal estate agent on the estate without the family’s approval.
 
Reacting to the allegations, the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 2, Onikan, Adegoke Fayoade, said: “Why is he making trouble? I asked them to carry out the family resolution; so, what is the problem with that?
 
“The family had a dispute, and they arrived at a resolution, and the resolution is that the estate should be managed by an appointed estate agent, so what is the problem?
 
“The minute of the meeting was read, and he was at the meeting, so he should abide by the resolution.”