Lagos farmers seek govt intervention over land crisis

Some farmers in Lagos State under the aegis of the Commercial Farmers Cooperative in Epe have called on the Lagos State Government to urgently intervene in a land crisis in the state.

The farmers alleged that the continued invasion of their land by some military personnel and land grabbers, as well as constant harassment, had limited their ability to continue with essential farming activities.

The Chairman of the cooperative union, Mr. Wale Oyekoya, made these known during a news conference and a peaceful protest held at the Lagos State House of Assembly on Tuesday.

Protesters hoisted several placards with various inscriptions such as “No To Military Invasion, Farmers Are Human”, “No Farmers No Nation’’, and ‘’Sanwo-Olu Compensate Us, the News Agency of Nigeria reported.

Oyekoya said the affected farmers had suffered series of human rights abuses from security personnel who invaded their farmlands in Itoikin, Epe, Lagos State.

The union chairman said over 300 hectares of land had been allegedly invaded, a situation he said had caused huge losses and rendered many farmers jobless.

“This development has greatly and negatively impacted our only source of livelihood which was farming hence disrupting the agricultural sector of the economy,” he said.

He recalled that in 2014, Lagos State government sent a letter to Bama Farms Limited about plans to relocate the farm in order to pave the way for Lekki International Airport.

As a result, he said farmers joined hands to engage late Rotimi Williams, SAN and were subsequently compensated and relocated to the Eluju Mowo/Mutaku area of Ibeju, Epe in 2015 by the administration of Governor Babatunde Fashola.

He, however, stressed that no sooner than they took over the place, farmers started having problems with the landowners popularly known as ‘Omo onile’, a development that paved the way for hooligans to take over y took over the farms.

Narrating the ordeal of the farmers in the hands of the land grabbers, Oyekoya said, “Thugs will come and disturb our farms destroying our crops and steal our livestock and as time went by, they brought thugs and estate developers to destabilise us.

“The estate developers started building on our farmlands and we reported all these to the government through the governor, Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Survey, Commerce and Justice with no response or action from them. The omo onile grew wings by harassing and threatening us with hired security operatives. The threatened us with frivolous charges and lawsuits on a land that was allocated to us by Lagos State Government. The truth is, we have been through hell and hardship and LASG turned deaf ears to our problems.”

He recalled that the matter had been reported to the offices of the Lagos State Governor, the Attorney General, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, but there no responses.

This, he said, gave the omo onile and estate developers more power to harass and encroach on farmers lands.

“Series of attacks were carried out on our farms unabated without the government intervention to help us on the land that was allocated to us.

“We do not want to believe there is some collaboration between the government agencies, ministries, the omo onile and the estate developers against the farmers.

“Recently, precisely five weeks ago, December 2023 the military came with full force, beating people up and sending people away from their properties and farmers were not exempted.

“Bama Farms with about 100 hectares of land was the hardest hit as his farms were taken over by the military, the fences broken, crops and properties bulldozed and all its farm workers have disappeared out of fear and intimidation thereby affecting other farming activities. The question now is; Why did Lagos State allocate us military land? Why did they refuse to attend to our cry for help?

“Why did they refuse to issue us Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) on the land allocated to us? Why did they refuse to engage the farmers when the military invaded our farms over a month ago?,” he queried.

Oyekoya urged the Lagos state government to provide adequate compensation, immediate relocation with C of O and sort out payment on the lands.

Addressing the protesters, the Deputy Majority Leader of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adedamola Kasumu who spoke on behalf of the Speaker, assured that the matter would be attended to urgently.