The intervention of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Wednesday, saved the Magodo Estate Phase 2 from demolition by the Adeyiga family of Shangisha, reportedly acknowledged as the lawful owner of the land where the estate is sited, by the Supreme Court.
Tension engulfed the estate from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning when the judicially-acclaimed owners rolled a bulldozer to the gate of the estate, connecting Shangisha, preparatory to pulling down multi-billion naira hundreds of buildings marked for possession on Tuesday afternoon.
When the bulldozer was denied access by the leadership of Magodo Residential Association (MRA) Tuesday night, the claimant-family moved early Wednesday morning to execute the apex court’s judgment which returned the estate land to the family.
The estate’s leadership quickly rallied the residents as early as 4:00 a.m., to resist the planned invasion by the claimant-family, which had, earlier on Tuesday, got court bailiffs in their numbers to mark hundreds of buildings for possession.
Security for the bailiffs was provided by more than 100 police officers, some of whom were left behind till Wednesday morning, laying a kind of siege to the estate.
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The gates to the estate were firmly locked against the bulldozer, preventing residents from going out and visitors from coming in.
A huge truck was also used by the MRA leadership to block the main entrance from the inside to prevent the bulldozer from rolling the gate over, following the reluctance of the residents to use their cars as blockade against the bulldozer as earlier admonished by the MRA leadership.
The officers were eventually pulled away by a Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Kotangora, following the intervention of Governor Sanwo-Olu, through the Mayoress of Ikosi-Ketu Local Council Development Area, Samiat Abolanle Bada, who was physically on ground to appeal to the police to end the siege, while assuring the residents that the governor would take care of the matter.
The end of the siege also led to the end of the shut-in.
The Adeyiga family had sued the state government for forcibly taking over the land for a supposed special project, only to sell to individuals.
Bada had also disclosed that the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, Mr Moyosore Onigbanjo, would issue a statement on the long-running ownership battle for over 500 plots of land in the estate.
The statement was yet to be released as of press time.
Meanwhile, the MRA chairman, Mr Bajo Osinubi, has urged the governor to call the land owners of Magodo-Shangisha to a roundtable in order to proffer permanent solution to the tussle.
Mr Osinubi said such roundtable is very important even though the governor had promised the estate would not be invaded again. While narrating the buildup to the tense hours of Tuesday and Wednesday to newsmen, he said over 100 armed policemen stormed the estate on Tuesday night that they wanted to take possession of the land without any letter to the effect.
