By Esther Onyegbula & Okoro Precious

Residence of Agogo Igbala community in age- Mowo, Badagry area of lagos have called on the lagos state government to come to their rescue.

Speaking during the protest a landlord, Alahaji Jinadu Adesina said:we are calling on the Lagos state to come to their aid and rescue us from landgraggbers who have invaded our community. I bought and built my house over 20 years ago and I have been living here.

Last year, some persons invaded our community with thugs and marked our houses for demolition. The owners of the land who sold the land to us had to take the matter to court.

We paid money to the landowners when we bought the land so we can’t pay what they are demanding have collected money from us. We have had over four court sitting and they have refuse to come to court instead they been invading our community and intimidating residents.

We are holding this protest this morning because we received intelligence report few days ago that we the land grabbers are coming to invade our community again. They said they are coming to demolish all our house. We are begging the lagos state government to come to our aid.

The effort that we did is to collaborate with the owners of the land and went to court to go and counter their allegations and claims. And the case is still in the court. The challenge at the court is that the invaders and land grabbers not coming to vanguard. We want the government to stop them for invading and demolishing our houses, till the court gives a judgement

Two days ago they went to the neghibouring community to arrest the Baale with uniform men at about 2 am in the night.

Their activities is a cause of worry to residents in the community. Many people have developed high blood pressure. Some landlords have died from this inceassant invasions.

According to another resident Mrs Dansu Oghemeovo, I buy this piece of land over 25 years ago when this place was still a thick forest. My children who I gave birth to her are all grown and are married. Only for a group of people to storm the community to claim the community land that we have all the documentation. Where do they want us to start from. They have arrested the Baale and Babaloja of the other community.

We are calling on the Lagos state government, the state house of assembly to help and rescue us from the hands of these people who are tormenting, intimidating and attacking us. We don’t have where to go if they succeed in demolishing our houses. My husband and I are retired, our children are yet to find their feet.

According to 58 year old resident Mrs Dora Umole, “I’ve been here 23 years now. This issue started in March last year. One afternoon like that, we saw crowd with some police officers, they started making houses and placing demoilition notices on houses. They alledged that the land belonged to them. Since then, we are not sleeping. They started disturbing us. If we shake back and push up, they said we should close our shop unless we pay money. We should be paying 4,000 every day before we can open our shop to sell market.

Beating people, anybody that is working, they will collect money or they pack all the equipment they are using. So since they started disturbing us, we don’t have rest of mind. They take this matter to the court. Yesterday, we just see that they come. We just hear information that they are breaking our pillar to come and demolish our houses. Because when I saw this on Friday, we heard that they come at midnight to come and demolish our houses because of this case.

That’s why we are crying out for the state government, for the Lagos state government, Lagos state national assembly, for our president to save us and help us. Sergio Samuel will help us and give us rest of mind. The amount they are asking people to pay, not the 4,000 for shop owners.

They ask us to pay 5,000,000 for each house.

according to Mrs. Priscilla Iyekekpolor, “My husband, a retired army officer and I came here 20 years ago and we bought land from Agogo Igbala family. All we want is peace. Agogo Igbala have been peaceful for the past 20 years. But for the past one year, we cannot sleep in peace.

For somebody coming to tell you that he is demolishing your sweat of 20 years, you are just killing the person. So we want the state house of assembly, the state, the governor, our governor, our president, to please and please come to our aid. We don’t want to leave Agogo Igbala. We are living in peace. Let them not demolish our houses. We beg them. We want to be at peace. And we pray that God will help us too. Because most of us are hypertensive.

This alone can trigger something and one is gone overnight. So please and please, they should come to our aid. And we pray that as we are giving this media out, we will start seeing results.

We don’t want it to be swept under the carpet.