By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN—THE Aghedo family of Ologbo, in Ikpoba/Okha Local Government Area of Edo State, has accused Dubril Oil Plc of encroaching on their land and planning to pay compensation to some faceless individuals in the community without obtaining necessary legal authority by way of legal acquisition or valid lease from them.

However, attempt by Vanguard to reach the company’s spokesman, Mr. Clement Seweje, for his reaction failed as he did not pick calls to his phone.

The family in a letter to the Managing Director of Dubril Oil Plc through their counsel, Olayiwola Afolabi, insisted that in the event that the company fails to treat their latest correspondence, it would have no alternative than to institute a legal action against the company and pursue the criminal prosecution of all the agents of the company involved in the illegal destruction of their property.

The Aghedo family explained that the said land was well delineated and properly represented in the documents of title covering it, insisting that it holds the expanse of land as individual holders distinct and separated from the community, adding that in no way whatsoever is the land under any form of communal holding or ownership.

It added that for several decades beginning from when the said parcel of land was acquired in 1961 up to the point of Dubril Oil Plc’s encroachment, the family has been in peaceful and undisturbed possession of the said land carrying out farming activities.

“However, it came to our client’s notice sometime in April, 2014 that your company had forcefully entered the land unlawfully on the pretext of having acquired the land from the Ologbo community, prompting the massive excavation of the land and bulldozing of our economic trees.

“The said expanse of land has documents indicating the purchase and evidencing the active possession and occupation of the land by our client’s family,” he said.