Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Enforcement Agency (Task Force) has arrested a five-man land grabbing syndicate, who operates at the Command Secondary School, Ipaja axis, Ikola Junction, for trying to forcefully take possession of 12 hectares of land belonging to the state Ministry of Housing.

Chairman of the Agency, Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), Shola Jejeloye, said the suspects had been known for perpetrating such act around the axis, but luck ran out on them when they forcefully tried to obtain money from the building contractors working on the site who alerted the Agency officials before their arrest.

According to him, the suspects: 50-year-old Adekola Shoderu; 47-year-old Gbenga Oladipupo; 38-year-old Ibrahim Mustapha; 40-year old Philip Gabriel; 43-year-old Fatai Yusuf and  Olanrewaju Ifetijesu have been terrorising the area despite warnings.

“I have said it times without number that there is no room for land grabbers or Omooniles in Lagos and anyone still involved in that practice would be made to face the wrath of the law.

“The property belongs to Lagos State Ministry of Housing who is in Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement with Prosper Gardens Properties to build structures meant to better the lives of Lagosians. The activities of the land grabbers impeded flow of work on the site as a result of their constant threats with harmful weapons demanding payment of the land from the contractors. The suspects will be charged to court accordingly,” he said.

Jejeloye urged Lagosians to be on the look out for more actors in land grabbing and report them to the Agency directly or through social media channels.

He also appealed to residents to desist from taking laws into their hands when such unscrupulous individuals approach them as two wrongs do not make a right.