JUST IN: Sanwo-Olu meets Magodo estate residents, knocks police for continued presence

TECHNOCRAT MEDIA, Lagos

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, has promised to work towards the peaceful resolution of the legal tussle over land ownership in Magodo estate phase two.

He stated this on Tuesday when he visited the estate amid a police invasion.

The residents had converged in a peaceful assembly demanding the intervention of the state government over the threat of demolition.

While addressing the residents, Mr Sanwo-Olu said the parties involved will meet at the statehouse on Wednesday to settle the issues amicably.

Also present with the governor at Magodo was Moyosore Onigbanjo, attorney-general of the state.

Mr Sanwo-Olu described the presence of police officers at Magodo Estate Phase 2 as “illegal”.

“As the chief security officer of the state, I don’t know what other interests the police have beyond keeping peace of the country. This is not an expectation that I will expect them to keep the peace because they don’t have any business here,” he said.

In an address to the leader of the police officers who had been marking houses for demolition in the estate, the governor said he had written to the Attorney-General of the Federation and he claimed he knew nothing about the continued presence of police officers at the estate.

“The case is between the state government [and the Shangisha Landlord Association] and I am the governor standing in front of you,” Mr Sanwo-Olu asserted.

He also said he would make a phone call to the IGP who would give an order for the police to leave the estate. He also charged the leader of the police officers to know the number of his men to prevent the breakdown of order.

“Why I am asking you to know your men is that I want to be sure that every man you brought to this estate, you can account for them before there will be a complete breakdown of law and order, and you will be held responsible for it,” he said.

The governor said, “Gentlemen, give me five minutes. I will make those two phone calls.”

Meanwhile, Hakeem Odumosu, the outgoing Lagos State Commissioner of Police, ordered the police in the estate to release everyone they had arrested since they began to mark houses for demolition.

Police officers from the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Respond Squad arrived at the estate two weeks ago with bulldozers to enforce a Supreme Court order giving ownership of over 500 plots of land in the estate to the Shangisha Landlord Association. Residents of the estate, who feared the demolition of their houses, resisted the officers, but they have refused to leave the premises since then.

(FIJ)