......Govt acquires 2 km corridor acquisition along Lagos/Ibadan expressway since 1998
Residents of Ajegunle/Araromi community in Makun, Sagamu local government area of Ogun State on Thursday staged a peaceful protest against the demolition of their houses by officials of the state government.
The residents, who were armed with placards with various inscriptions, such as: "Ajegunle, Araromi community must exist, please save our soul", "Dapo Abiodun, save us, respect court injunction" and "We have no where to go", among others, woke up to the shrieking sound of bulldozers as officials of the State Bureau of Lands and Survey accompanied by armed policemen stormed their community pulling down their structures.
While alleging that the government demolished their houses after selling the land to a Chinese company for industrial purpose without paying them any compensation, lamented that the government did not give them any prior notice before the demolision.
Speaking on behalf of the protesters, the Legal Adviser to the community, Oduwole Olusoga lamented that, government failed to obey a court injunction restraining it from demolishing their houses.
Olusoga said, "We have a court injunction refraining the state government from carrying out the dastard act that they have taken today.
"There is a subsisting court injunction, we served them, we did everything and there were so many interventions, but despite all, the government went ahead to demolished our houses.
"The Chinese the government sold our land to has been boasting around, he said he sponsored Dapo Abiodun's second term election, that there is nothing we have, that they will pulled this place down.
"Even with a court injunction, they took this step, we are still in court. Multimillion investments are being destroyed, look at what they did to our property.
"They did not allow us access into our property, they are pulling everything down, our belongings are still inside.
"We want our land, we don't want compensation even when they have demolished our structures, we want our land, let them give us back our land.
"We have not been compensated. There was no notification, the government did not notify us before destroying our structures.
"We have written several letters to the governor's office, to the Bureau of Lands and serving them the court injunction restraining them from taking any action on the land".
Reacting to the development, the State Director General, Bureau of Lands and Survey, Segun Fowora,
said the Ogun State government duly acquired 2 km corridor acquisition along Lagos/Ibadan expressway since 1998.
He stressed that, "the corridor ordinarily represents the state to the whole world being the major entrance to the state and proper management of the axis is more desirable and controlling development within the corridor is the prerogative of government".
"All developments along the axis must therefore conform with state planning regulation. Any contravention on occupation and developments must face consequences of violating the laws of the state".
"For purpose of clarification, all illegal occupation and developments on government land are always notified before government takes appropriate actions against the illegal developments".
"In the present instance, appropriate agencies of government had served several notices of contravention to all the illegal occupiers and developers".
"In line with standard practice, the valuation of existing interest is usually done and compensation paid to those unexhausted improvements".
"However, unknown individuals in flagrant violation of extant laws started building on government land without any valid documents nor title from the state and without building permit from appropriate Government Agency. This is an attempt to deprive investors the right to peaceful and quiet enjoyment of land".
"As a responsive and responsible administration, if this is allowed to stand, it will portray the state as unserious in the committee of foreign investors".
"To this extent, the state has directed the appropriate agency of government using the instrumentality of law and following due process to remove any illegal encroachments so as to deliver a peaceful and quiet enjoyment to our development partners. In this regards, the state has done no wrong".
"Members of the public should expect more of this action from the state particularly those who are bent on violating the provisions of the law. The members of the public should also note that the state is wary of actions that portray her in bad light".
He advised members of the society to take due diligence on any matter relating to land in the State, so as not to fall prey to dubious land speculators.
No comments:
Post a Comment