Members of the concerned land owner’s association of Igbesa Town, Ogun State, has protested against the management of the Guadong Free Trade Zone, largely occupied by Chinese Companies, alleging forceful encroachment and acquisition of large expanse of Lands, demolishing houses, farms and other amenities in the process.
The protesters congregated and marched peacefully on Captain David Road in Igbesa with placards expressing their grievances against the Chinese companies whom they alleged has systematically being encroaching on their land, using armed Mobile Policemen, Nigeria Army, DSS, Armed thugs and all sorts of intimidations to forcefully takeover lands from them beyond what was officially allotted them in 2007.
Honorable Ajose Solomon, the Chairman of the Association who spoke on behalf of the group during the protest said, “Our community was approached in 2007 by an entourage led by Mrs. Badru Salimot, the former Deputy Governor of Ogun state to solicit for large expense of land for industrial purposes.
“Though they promised to develop road networks, provide electricity, pipe borne water, job opportunities and other amenities, yet our people in Igbesa were skeptical and refused to cede their lands to them for acquisition.
“They left Igbesa afterwards to Ejila-Awori a nearby community to negotiate and got 12 villages who gave them 400 hectares of land which they fenced up and later abandoned, owing to the topography of the place and in inaccessibility, making them to come back to Igbesa where some of our people betrayed their good conscience to give about 250 hectares to them.” He added.
Honorable Ajose corroborated his assertion by showing to reporters, Survey Maps, indicating areas acquired by the Chinese and the vast lands belonging to the community which are not originally ceded to theme, but forms part of the land that are presently encroached on by the Chinese managed Guadong Free Trade Zone.
The reporters covering the protest decided to visit the Company to get their side of the story, during which they engaged one Alhaji Ajayi Kabir, who introduced himself as the representative of the Group Managing Director, explaining that the GMD is not on seat to attend to us, but promised to organise a meeting where the management would respond to the allegations by the community, but after waiting for a week without any indication that the Company is willing to respond, we were compelled to publish the allegations of the community.
Honourable Ajose However said, the Company has nothing valid to say, saying, “what they claim to be the land space allocated to them cannot be verified from the Ogun State Bureau of Lands and Survey neither are they gazzeted with the State Ministry of Justice.”
Owolabi Kehinde who said he was the first Chairman of the Igbesa Community Association corroborated the assertions of Honourable Ajose by saying; “In addition to what Hon. Ajose said, in 2007 Gov. Gbenga Daniel sent a delegation to Igbesa, led by the Deputy Governor with Alhaji Gbenga Isiaka in the delegation, to ask the Community to release part of their land for the establishment of the Guadong Free Trade Zone, which we resisted at first, but after a lot of consultation, we decided to lease part of our land. A survey was carried out resulting in the release of about 225 hectares of land from Igbesa and about 400 hectares from Ejila Awori, afterwards enumeration was carried out and compensation paid.
“In 2017, to our dismay, the Guadong management started extending beyond their allotted land space into our farmlands and houses, demolishing every structure found on the land. We confronted them peacefully but our cries fell on the deaf ears resulting in peaceful protests carried by our people from time to time.
“Rather than the management listening to us, they resorted to the use of the Nigeria Police Officers to hound and arrest our people particularly Hon. Ajose who was picked to the force headquarters in Abuja, dragged to court and after several appearances he was discharged and acquitted.
“At the moment they closed the only access road to Ajure Imota from igbesa stopping the residents from accessing modern amenities, including; banking, hospitals, schools, and others. Chemicals from their factories have destroyed our major source of water, killing all the aquatic lives and making it undrinkable.
In the course of the protest a large number of Mobile Policemen were deployed to stop the protest but were restrained because of the reporters they found covering the protest, prompting the officers to peacefully address the protesters, asking them to be peaceful in expressing their grievances which they said the company will look into, but not the case as at going to press.
