Farmers and residents of 5 Ilaro communities in Yewa South Native Council, Ogun State, have petitioned Governor Dapo Abiodun over growing assaults and land encroachment by armed land grabbers.
The communities: Iweke, Idode, Koto-Obo, Ilobi-Omuwa, and Ileba expressed alarm over what they described as “escalating terror” on their ancestral farmlands, warning of dire penalties for meals safety and livelihoods if pressing motion shouldn’t be taken.
Within the petition, signed by their spokesperson, Pastor Oyero Olurin, the farmers alleged that legal teams have continued to invade their lands in defiance of the state’s Anti-Land Grabbing Legislation, regardless of interventions by the Paramount Ruler of Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Gbadewole Olugbenle.
They accused the armed invaders of assaulting farmers, destroying crops, together with cocoa and citrus, stealing livestock, and intimidating villagers with impunity. In keeping with them, the assaults have displaced households who’ve peacefully cultivated the lands for greater than 150 years.
“They dwell in worry, unable to are likely to their farms throughout the essential planting and harvesting season,” the petition learn. The farmers warned that unchecked violence may set off meals insecurity, financial collapse within the area, and attainable lack of lives.
The petitioners additionally alleged complicity by some regulation enforcement officers, accusing them of meddling unlawfully in civil land issues that needs to be dealt with by courts and conventional rulers.
They claimed that land speculators, in collaboration with sure brokers and authorized practitioners, have been utilizing police safety to illegally promote giant tracts of farmland with out legitimate documentation.
“There are reviews that some land grabbers are utilizing police safety to illegally promote giant tracts of farmland. They declare ancestral possession with out providing any legitimate documentation. Why are these claims solely surfacing now when their ancestors by no means contested these lands?” the group queried.
The farmers appealed to Governor Abiodun to order safety companies to disarm and take away the invading teams, implement the state’s Anti-Land Grabbing Legislation, and make sure the prosecution of these accountable. They additional demanded aid help for displaced households and the institution of a monitoring activity power to guard susceptible communities.
