Wusu Babatunji
In Lagos, a landlord may as well be homeless in a matter of court ruling. On April 26, residents of Agidingbi, a flourishing business and residential neighbourhood, just behind Alausa, got a taste of that experience.
A notice ordering them to vacate their homes were pasted while some of them were still sleeping. A notice in red paint, emphatically stated on the wall of their buildings: “Possession taken.”
It almost caused nervous breakdown for some of the residents. “I was born and bred here. My forefathers lived in Agidingbi and I don’t see any reason why some people will just wake up and say they are the owners of the community,” Wasiu Bolaji-Seidu, a community leader said in a depressed tone.
The court order which purportedly sacked the residents from their abode was a 42 year-old legal tussle between the Akinole-Oshuin family and the Lagos State Government.
According to the Oshuin family, the court judgment got up to the Supreme Court, and it affirmed their rightful ownership of about 398 acres of land at Agidingbi, Ikeja in Lagos.
The Oshuin family, accompanied by security agents, inscribed the notice of possession on at least 2,000 buildings, including First Bank, Zenith Bank, Mega Chicken, and many other business concerns.
The family even called the residents “illegal occupants.” The notice asked the residents to immediately contact the solicitor of the Oshuin family, Ayo Opadokun, with whatever documents they have to rectify their title within the next seven days or face demolition.
The residents have protested to the Lagos State government to look into the matter. In 2013, a similar scenario played out in Iganmu, only that the judgment creditor, the Ojora family were not so generously to give a seven-days grace period.
After the Supreme Court recognised its rightful ownership of the entire Iganmu community, the family moved in with earth movers and bulldozers, accompanied with policemen and court bailiffs.
The residents were given the option of signing an agreement at the spot or risk having their houses demolished. Many signed. A few others didn’t. Their houses were pulled down.
Many lands in Lagos are at different stages of disputes in the courts, which many residents are not aware. They continue to pass in commercial transaction from one hand to another.
Only in 2013, the Supreme Court in an age long, declared that the Osapa Village in Ibeju Lekki which comprised of about 10 hectares of land, belongs to the Eletu family and not the Ojomu family.
Both the High Court and the Appeal Court had awarded the disputed land to the Ojomu family until it was upturned by the Supreme Court. In many of the disputed lands, the residents were hardly aware that a legal fireworks were ongoing until court bailiffs stormed their abode and notified them that they were illegal occupants of the property.
This was the reason the Spaces for Change, a non government organisation, launched a report titled ‘public-private connection in urban displacement.” The report was aimed at educating the public on land ownership in Lagos.
The report traces the history of land ownership in Lagos, which began with a prince of Ile-Ife, Olofin Ogunfunminire and his 11 biological and adopted children called the Idejos or White Cap chiefs, all of whom owned large swathe of Lagos land.
They are; Olumegbon, Oniru, Elegushi, Onikoyi, Oluwa, Onisiwo, Ojora, Onitolo, Aromire, Onitana and Oloto. The report also located other landowning families in Lagos who are either children of Olofin but are not classified as Idejos or some other migrants different from those of Olofin, who settled in areas such as Mushin, Oshodi, Isolo, Shasha and many other communities.
Their ancestry is traced to the Awori tribe of Ogun State. The Idejos and other first settler families lay claim to substantial portions of the land in Lagos.
The status of the Idejos as the owners of certain land estates in Lagos has been affirmed in a line of Supreme Court cases.
As a result, any person living on those lands, unless the lands were previously sold to other parties or acquired by government, ought to be able to trace their right to live on the land to the relevant land owning family.
