Landowners in the Badagry area of Lagos State are living in fear, following incessant attacks and threats by suspected land grabbers and their thugs.
The threats are such that the landowners’ alleged police connivance, noting that the leader of the deadly gang has continued to make their lives very difficult.
One of the victims, Mr. Dosu Isaac Dosu of Agekho, Tohun Badagry, who spoke on behalf of his family, lamented that they saw hell in the hands of the notorious land grabbers and their thugs after they attacked him in his farmland, claiming that their ancestral land, which they sold two years ago, was sold to him by one non-existent person.
Dosu said he was afraid that if they see him in public, they would attack and possibly kill him, alleging that some hoodlums sponsored by the land grabbers, have attacked and continued to make life-threatening statements to him and his family at Agekho, Tohun Badagry, Lagos State.
According to him, “I was in my farmland on 30 May, working with my mother and brother, when we saw a group of people with weapons led by one man (name withheld).
“While I was interrogating him, he said one Tope family sold the land to him two years ago. I told him the place belonged to my family, not any Tope family, and the case was already in court. In the process, his boys attacked me with digger and other weapons.
“I immediately rushed to Badagry police station to report and also got the police report, which I took to Badagry General Hospital, where I was treated. This is a parcel of land where my parents have been farming on for decades before I was born.
“While I was in the hospital, I discovered that the next day, the police returned all the weapons we collected from the hoodlums without an arrest. The hoodlums went back to the farm, destroyed our crops such as cocoa and palm trees, and constructed a fence on the land.
“While this was going on, the leader of land grabbers, kept threatening me, saying that if I had died, the whole case would be over, and bragging that he knew enough people and he has enough money to deal with me”.
His legal adviser, Mr. Abayomi Medemaku said: “When I got to know about this case, I realised that some people were threatening and intimidating Mr. Dosu and his family with thugs on their farmland. A binding over suit was filed in the magistrate’s court to bind over those threatening him”.
