Magodo residents were rattled when hundreds of gun-wielding policemen accompanied a bulldozer to render them homeless.
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
In Lagos, the roof over your head could be removed without any advance notice from the demolition team, as they did to residents of Monkey Village in last New Year eve demolition of the poor community near the Opebi area of Lagos State.
An attempt to repeat something similar in Magodo, a Lagos highbrow neighbourhood, is being resisted by the rich residents, who, unlike Monkey Village residents, have the resources to ward off intruders.
Magodo residents woke up this morning to find hundreds of policemen bearing guns, not to catch terrorists or bandits making life impossible in some parts of the country, but to enforce an alleged court order which allegedly gives the Adeyiga family more than 500 plots of land. And since the Lagos State government has been foot-dragging in allocating the land to the family, the Adeyiga mobilized policemen and hired bulldozers to reclaim the 500 plots of land, which meant the demolition of at least 300 houses in Magodo Estate to make up for that number.
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The Magodo residents, seeing the squadron of policemen besieged their homes to aid the demolition of their homes, quickly locked the gate at about 4. am today, December 22 and phoned the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who, it was gathered, worked the phone until normalcy was restored.
According to The Nation, members of the Adeyiga family, armed with a Supreme Court judgment, have asked the Magodo house owners to vacate the land.
The report says being a Lagos State acquired land, the landlords claimed that they have Certificates of Occupancy (C of O) from the government, hence, they resisted the demolition.
The Adeyiga family have already marked some of the homes with “ID/795/88 possession taken today 21/12/2021 by court order.” The crisis has been deferred to another day.
