By Hugo Odiogor

AGgrieved residents of Liberty Residents Association have sent a strongly worded petition to Oba Kabiru Agbiaka, the Osolo of Isolo over their plight in the land purchased from the Okota Royal Family which some agents of Lagos state government, acting in consort with the state government, are scheming to grab from them.

No fewer than 200 residents of the emerging estate are being arm twisted by agents of the Lagos State Building and Investment Company which is laying claims to the same land which members of the Okota Royal Family claimed they had taken custody of following a court judgement that released the land to them.

But agents of LBIC said they were given mandate by Governor Babtunde Raji Fashola, whom sources said may have muscled the Royal family to lay off its hands from the Land even though the matter is on appeal by the state government which had originally lost the case.

A member of the Okota Royal Family confirmed to Vanguard Homes & Property that the Kabiyesi has received the petition but would respond after the traditional festival taking place in his domain.

Sources said majority of those affected in this land grab saga bought their land from the Okota Royal Family. According to the affected buyers, “we were told that the government had freed the land from acquisition by the Oba himself and we are holding up on that.“

Another source in government said “when Oba Kabiru Agbaiaka came to power about seven years ago, he challenged the acquisition of the West end of Airport Land under the Land Use Act (1978), for which no compensation was paid to the Okota family, the government lost the case because it could no provide evidence that compensation was paid to the Okota family, it was on this basis that government agreed to release the land to the Okota Family, but at the same time, the state government had gone to appeal court to challenge the initiate court judgement against it and the court asked both sides to maintain status quo.

But the Lagos state government and its agents in Ministry of Lands and Survey and LBIC are violating the the law by sending bulldozers into the estate on August 17,2011

An official of the Liberty Resident Association told Vanguard Homes & Property that “all this talk about ratification and regularisation of land titles are just ploys by government officials to grab people’s land, using government machinery and resell the same lands to new buyers who are offering as much as N5million, we are aware that governor Fashola has earmarked about 150 plots of land for himself and the other officials in government have been collecting money from prospective buyers, what they are doing now is to stampede us who because majority of those affected are non indigenes, they want us to to their intimidation.

They had initially asked us to pay N5.5million and before we could respond, they pulled down our foundations and fences in most vicious manner, after this callous act, they have come back to ask us to pay N2,118million, which they claimed would cover the cost of regularisation, building plan approval and survey plan”.

Another source told Vanguard that “we would want the Oktota Royal family to know that we would not forfeit our had earned money in any fraudulent transaction, if they know that the land was encumbered abinitio, then they have to refund the monies they have collected with interest. We are here as agents of development. We could have afforded to buy land in neighbouring Ogun state.

“We earned our money in the hard way and we cannot see why we should suffer this cruelty of having the foundation of houses pulled down, even if the Lagos state government won the appeal case, which it did not, the most civilized thing to do is to take all those that may have encroached on its land to court, government is about following due process, we have called on the governor to probe the extortion of money from us, we have told the governor that we have spent fortunes to sand fill the estate to the point that it has become attractive to these officials in government.”

The estate resident said they would cry out to national and international organizations on the inhuman actions been meted out to them by these so called progressives.