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A big uncertainty now surrounds the fate of thousands of landowners in Oloburo Village, Mowe, in Obafemi Owode Local Government of Ogun State, as a state High Court has dismissed the claims of a plaintiff, Chief Fatai Adekunle, to the ownership of 20.791 hectares of land in the community.

The land had been sold to members of the public and corporate organisations and undergoing various stages of development while some properties had been completed.

Adekunle had applied to the state High Court in 2004, seeking the judgment of the court to declare him the owner of the land and declare the defendants, the Balogun Family, as trespassers on the land, which originally belonged to one Madam Ayarunke Balogun, who died in 1968.

In her judgment, however, in Abeokuta on Friday, Justice Bunmi Olopade said the plaintiff had failed to give sufficient proof that the land in question belonged to him or to his progenitors.

Olopade wondered why a person, who claimed to own a piece of land, would not be able to know those who shared boundaries with him, describing Adekunle’s action as frivolous and a gamble.

She berated the plaintiff for employing force and violence to take possession of a land that did not belong to him and selling same to unsuspecting members of the public.

“This is not a gambling house; what you have done amounted to gambling and we will not encourage that. It is an abuse of legal process and the court,” she added.

The representative of the defendants, Mr. Adio Jolaoso, through the family counsel, Mr. Peter Ilegogie, had agued that the Balogun family engaged the services of a town planning consultant in 1997 to prepare a comprehensive residential layout plan.

Jolaoso said, “The above step was taken to by the family as part of efforts to further manage and transform the farmland into a residential estate development with all necessary facilities in order to facilitate a coordinated development strategy.

“In 2003, when the efforts started yielding fruits, there appeared some thugs tagged land speculators who nearly succeeded in forcing the family out of the land. We understand they came from Ota and known as armed land speculators (Ajegungbale).

He explained that the Balogun family put up some resistance but backed out of armed confrontation in order not to encourage criminality and possible loss of lives.

Jolaoso added that the plaintiff decided to initiate the suit before the Balogun family could do same in order to buy time and sell the land while the legal action would still be pending.

He explained that Madam Ayanrunke Balogun had already willed the land, which she used for farming, to her six children. All the beneficiaries are, however, also deceased before she died in 1968.

The family representative regretted that the plaintiff used the proceeds of the land to fight the legal battle, which he initiated in 2004.

The family members believed that those who had bought land from Adekunle did so at ‘their own risk’, wondering how a trespasser could sell land that did not belong to him