Photo: Three suspected land grabbers arrested in Lagos

Three suspected land grabbers, Igbokun Ogunkoya, 40, Ayoola Ahmed, 20 and Lateef Alase, 44 were arrested on Sunday August 14, at Alade village, Ikeja after they invaded and damaged a property. The suspects, however, denied the allegations claiming they were contracted by the owner of the property to excavate an abandoned foundation.
Ogunkoya claimed he was a registered contractor and had invited the other two to work for him after the owner of the property identified as one Abayomi, contracted him for the job.

"We are not land grabbers and we have never been. I am a contractor and I invited them to work for me. Ahmed was operating the tractor and Alase works for me. We started work there on Saturday. It was the owner, one Abayomi who gave us the job and that Saturday many policemen from the Special Anti-Robbery Sqaud (SARS) were on ground. We worked on Saturday and returned on Sunday to continue work. There were three policemen there with us still. It was while we were working that some policemen came and said we were land grabbers. That we were not authorised to do that work. They arrested the policemen with us that they were on illegal duty but since then, we have not seen the three policemen," he said.

Police Commissioner, Fatai Owoseni, who paraded the suspects said the command will use them as examples against land grabbers.

"This is to demonstrate the command’s resolve to completely stamp out the madness of land grabbers. The law against land grabbing will be strictly enforced and the command will work in unison with the Taskforce established to contain the menace. The suspects will be arraigned in court."

Source: THE NATION