Ota communities under siege over court ruling

BY IFEANYI OKOLIE

Residents of Anglican Road and their counterparts at Odo Pako community in the ancient town of Ota, in Ogun State, are currently living in fear following the decision by members of Ilupewo family to commence the execution of an appeal court judgment they got on a vast expanse of land in the area.

There was pandemonium at the weekend when members of the Ilupewo family who were said to be from Osi quarters, in Ota, and were acting on an Ibadan Appeal Court judgment,  sealed off many houses along Anglican Road, stretching to Odo Pako, a boundary community between Lagos and Ogun states.

The execution which was effected by armed security operatives and court bailiffs, left residents of the affected communities in disarray as they struggled to evacuate their properties from the sealed buildings.

Vanguard gathered that the legal battle for ownership of  the vast expanse of land cutting across the  Anglican Road to Odo Pako in Ota, Ogun State,  started many years back,  moving from the high Court in Abeokuta, to the Court of Appeal in Ibadan.

A High Court judgment delivered by Justice Jacob Sofolahan on  June 9, 1988, in favour of  the Ilupewo family and the case was taken to Court of Appeal.

Residents, who were following the case, got the shock of their lives in 2008, when the Court of Appeal in Ibadan upheld the judgment, but the case again found its way back to the appeal court, before it was struck out in 2012.