The menace of land grabbing is one that has eaten deep into the fabric of Lagos society for several years, yet with no end in sight.

Popularly called “omo onile” (landowners’ children), land grabbers operate with reckless abandon in Lagos State such that several residents believe that they must have the backing of some persons in authority in carrying out their nefarious activities.

More often than not, land grabbers invade building construction sites with different kinds of dangerous weapons to either extort site workers/labourers or chase them away from the site with claims that the piece of land upon which they are working belongs to someone else.

The dare-devil land grabbers are also in the business of forcefully taking over landed properties from rightful owners and reselling them to higher bidders.


In some cases, benevolent ones among the land grabbers may reallocate another piece of land in an entirely different location to the victim of their illegal act.

Activities of land grabbers in Lagos do not just end with the forceful taking over of landed properties, these weapon-bearing assailants also beat, batter, dehumanise and even kill their victims without remorse.

In recent times, the spate of violent land-grabbing activities has increased in Lagos resulting in incessant crises in some areas of the state, especially in Lekki, Ibeju Lekki, and Epe, among others.

Among these was the case of an alleged killing of a late traditional ruler of Lotu Town in the Ibeju Lekki area of Lagos State, Fatai Jubril, who was alleged to have been shot dead over a land dispute in the area on July 15, 2023.

Jubril’s widow, Ejiro, who was nursing a three-month-old baby at the time the tragedy struck, had alleged that another traditional ruler in the area killed her husband and told her that “he (Jubril) got what he deserved.”

Narrating her ordeal to The PUNCH, Ejiro had said after the traditional ruler and the hoodlums he allegedly came with had beaten up brutalised her husband, “Suddenly, the Baale hit the butt of the gun on the ground three times and the next thing I heard was a loud bang. He shot my husband. I cried out ‘You have killed my husband’ but he simply said my husband’s eyes had seen what he was looking for and that the deed had been done.”

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the incident to PUNCH Metro, assured that the police had launched a manhunt for the suspected killers, after which a suspect was said to have been arrested.

However, the spokesperson for the Zone 2 Command, Hauwa Idris-Adamu, later told The PUNCH that the prime suspect had been released on bail.

Jubril’s case was just one of several cases of how land-grabbing activities in Lagos have continued to thrive unabated, causing residents untold pain and loss of their loved ones and property.

In another land-grabbing matter, a Lagos resident, Shamsudeen Oluwo, is demanding justice over an alleged assault on him by one Saheed Mosadoluwa, also known as Ibile, in the Epe area of the state.

In a video currently in circulation on social media, Oluwo alleged that he was working on his site on July 8 when Ibile stormed the location with some policemen and armed thugs while they started to shoot sporadically.

In the three-minute video, Oluwo was forced to go on his knees while he was thereafter stripped naked by the thugs. The policemen could also be seen rounding up some men in the video.

The video, which was seen by our correspondent, showed some young men being brutalised, dehumanised and stripped naked by suspected land grabbers, while officers in police uniform were seen at the scene, forcing other men to lay on top of one another in one heap, and doing nothing to stop the suspected land grabbers.

While narrating his ordeal in another video, Oluwo said, “I have a serious issue that I want Nigerians to help me on. On July 8, I was working on my site around 10. By past 10 a.m., I saw people coming to the site. I saw Mr Saheed with many policemen and cultists with guns, cutlasses, machetes and jazz.

“They started shooting sporadically. Some people ran away while bullets hit some who escaped with gunshot wounds. But because I didn’t want to be shot, I lay down there with my boys.

“They came there and beat us. They took me to the police station in Lagos. From there, they took me to Abuja where I spent two weeks. Since then, I cannot go outside to work. Now I can’t go outside to work. These Ibile boys are targeting me. They have told them to injure me.

Speaking further, Oluwo narrated how he was blindfolded alongside his boys and taken into the bush by Ibile.

SensualMan:
Unfortunately yorubas will always remain Tenants to Igbos in Lagos even tho its supposed to be the other way round.

SensualMan:
Unfortunately yorubas will always remain Tenants to Igbos in Lagos even tho its supposed to be the other way round.