It was gathered that some suspected land-grabbers led some cultists to invade the community, causing mayhem and unrest.
While narrating the incident that culminated to the death of policeman and three others to newsmen, the Secretary to the Orelade/Ladera Royal Family of Gberigbe community, Mr. Olayiwola Akanmu, whose family owns the land, said it was after some mobile policemen who had been keeping watch on the community were withdrawn early June this year that made the area vulnerable to incessant cultists attacks, working in cohort with some land grabbers in the vicinity.
When asked if the matter had been reported to the police, Akanmu said the police at Imota Police Station were informed of the matter but has not taken the necessary proactive action to bring the situation under control.
Akanmu narrated that before the incident, there had been palpable tension within the community following an alleged previous murder which took place on May 20 after the land-grabbers and cultists who have been terrorising the community had a clash with some soldiers on patrol which eventually made the cultists to relocate temporarily out of the community.
It was, however, learnt that after a while the cultists and the land-grabbers came back, the community petitioned the police in Abuja, at the homicide section, to investigate the murder that happened when they had a clash with the military boys.
However, the presence of some policemen in the community became a hindrance to the cultists and land grabbers from terrorising the entire community and taking possession of people’s land illegally and reselling to unsuspecting buyers.
In order to remove the policemen from the community, the land grabbers, it was alleged again, petitioned X-SQUAD in Abuja led by one ASP Emmanuel and Inspector Rachel who later withdrew the policemen from the community on Friday, August 29, 2021 and the land grabbers and their gangs allegedly invaded the community the following day, Saturday, August 21, 2021 to cause mayhem in the community and in the process gruesomely murdered one policeman and three other persons.
Akanmu said the Gberigbe area of Ikorodu Local Government is currently not safe and therefore called on the Inspector-General of Police and other relevant security agencies to come to their rescue.
Akanmu added that there was tension in the community as people could not go about their daily businesses for the fear of another attack
Also the Baale of the community, Chief Olugbenga Adaralohun, who spoke on the issue said the Orelade-Ladera family owns the land that the land-grabbers want to illegally take possession of. According to the Baale, the matter has been settled in the court which gave the title of the land to the Orelade Ladera family.
The Baale opined that the law of the country and that of the Lagos State negates people taking laws into their hands even the use of land grabbers to forcefully take over people’s land without going through the law courts is illegal.
Efforts to get the other party’s story proved abortive as none of them were on ground to speak with journalists at the time of filing in this report.
Meanwhile, one Shola a.k.a Baba Esu and three others in connection with the mayhem and are currently in the police custody of the Area Police station.
However, when contacted on the issue, the Command’s Spokesperson, CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu promied to get back to our Correspondent, when he get details on the matter but he did not reach out till the time of filing this report
