• Lawyer accuses police of leading hoodlums to land
• We worked to restore order, Police say

An octogenarian, Sherifat Abass, the only surviving member of Ashabi Abass descendant of Ojuoto Village, Ibeju Lekki, Lagos, has cried out over alleged intimidation by landgrabbers and taking over of her 8.058 hectares of land.

Recall that in 2023, Justice R. O. Olukolu of a Lagos State High Court sitting in Osborne Foreshore Estate, Ikoyi, in a case between the descendants and Wakilu Ambali (Aka Olori Oko), Ifeanyi Okafor, Olisa Okudo and Raheem Bello, R.O Olukolu granted the claimant their prayers, including the octogenarian.

In the judgment delivered on January 15, 2023, Justice Olukolu retrained the defendants /respondents, their servants, agents, privies and anybody acting based on their instructions from entering, destroying, stationing thugs, reconstructing or constructing any structure whatsoever on the expanse of land adjudged to belong to the female members of the Abass Andu Family of Ojuoto Village, (Ibeju Lekki, Lagos).

But after the judgment, landgrabbers returned to the site to take possession of the land, using thugs who were allegedly protected by police officers.

Lawyer to the family, Akin Oladeji, said he wrote letters to the Lagos State Police Command as well as the Inspector General of Police on the matter.

He said: “Complaints have also been made to the Police Service Commission, which was forwarded to Federal Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) Area 10 Garki for action all to no avail.

“The land grabbers claimed that the land was sold to them by Wakilu Ambala but neither he nor Ifeanyi and Okudo have ever been able to produce any title documents to the land or purchase receipt either.

“They don’t have a survey plan nor any agreement with the first defendant’s family. No other member of the first defendant’s family has come out to support him since he started resisting us with Ifeanyi and Olisa last year.”

Oladeji said on Friday, April 5, 2024, the Area Commander, Area J Command, Assistant Commissioner of Police Yemisi Ojo sent a team of police officers from her command to drive away all the workmen on the land and arrested four of the guards and that she proceeded to hand over the land to the land grabbers and the crowd of hoodlums who came with them.”

“Two days later, hoodlums descended on the land with a tractor and pulled down most of the fences on it.

“The land grabbers came with police officers from Abuja to arrest my client, Madam Sherifatu on Thursday, April 18, 2024, and when they could not succeed, they proceeded to try to arrest her son, Hakeem Amele who is an officer of the Lagos Neighborhood Safety Corps (LNSC).

“They failed, but in the process, they brutalised him, tore his uniform and shattered his phone. Mama Sherifatu is over 80 years and she may not come back alive if they take her to Abuja”

When contacted on the issue, spokesperson for Lagos State Police Command, Benjamin Hundeyin, said: “Our involvement is to ensure law and order.”