Stop using fake CSOs to blackmail us, you’re the land grabber – Ajiran Community tells Monarch

Recently, a malicious article was featured in Leadership Newspaper of Tuesday April 18, 2023 and some online stables. The manifestly sponsored but vacuous statement by an amorphous group was a lame attempt to reinvent the wheels of truth and turn the hunter into the hunted. Standing truth on its head, the authors hiding under the banner of a nebulous Civil Society organization, attempts to turn legitimate demands by genuinely aggrieved community leaders and youths into something despicable. The series of Press campaigns in various news media is not worth the paper it was scribbled on and is ordinarily not deserving of a response except that ignoring such shenanigans from paid agents of propaganda will only serve to fan the ember of deliberate misinformation and outright mischief. A cursory peek at the profile, antecedents and mandate of Centre for Human and Socio-economic Rights (CHSR), the group acting as the agent of HRH Oba Akinloye and his sidekick, Alhaji Yekeni Bakare will reveal that it is a group of mercenary ready to lend itself to the highest bidder.

What were the issues that prompted a certain ‘Comrade’ Alex Omotehinse to convoke Civil Society Stakeholders Press Conference to express ‘deep concerns over the continuous threats to public peace as a consequence of the unlawful activities of land grabbers in Ojomu Community otherwise referred to Ajiran Land in the Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State’? It is difficult to wrap one’s head around the Comrade’s logic, but let us attempt to summarize his grouse against the youths and people of Ajiran/Ojomu land. He opines, rather strenuously, that the intervention of Civil Society Stakeholders has become imperative to put an end to reckless abuse of human rights, malicious disobedience of constituted authorities as well as brazen disregard for the laws of Lagos State.

In the ‘Comrade’ Omotehinse’s gaudy moral throne from where he dishes out judgement, all the residents of Ojomu land are to be condemned to eternal damnation for demanding probity, accountability and preservation of a common heritage.

Such depravity and lack of moral rectitude is the exact reason why the article was aptly described as the ranting of a desperado, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The whole scheme that warrants this write up is an archetypal propaganda/image laundry venture. Joseph Goebbels was a Nazi propaganda Chief who popularized the “big lie” theory.

He was famously quoted to have said that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”. Our “Comrade” is evidently an ardent fan of Hitler and his creeds. That Kabiyesi or any of his subject or in deed any member of Ajiran/Ojomu land was threatened physically or psychologically is a big lie from the pit of hell. To say that the community’s peace has been undermined by land grabbers is even a bigger lie. In reality, the media and press statement only succeeded in achieving the exact opposite of what it set out to achieve.

Some basic facts need restating. The land in question belongs to the indigenous people of Ajiran. It is a communal Land (Ojomu Chieftaincy Family Land) held and administered in trust for the whole family. As has been the practice from the days of our forebears, the community has lawyers appointed to handle all land matters, in a fair and transparent manner, for the benefit of the Ajiran/Ijomu Community.

Contrary to what they would have you believe, the Youths, led by Ojomu Youth Forum President, Tajudeen Ahmed, have been at the forefront of maintaining the peace and tranquility of our community. The underhand tactics of Oba Akinloye and Alhaji Bakare have set the duo against the community. The recent Press briefings and media war is simply the voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau. The Oba and his cohort have simply recruited mercenaries to blackmail the Youths Forum for daring to challenge their fraudulent activities. At the height of the brewing crisis in Ajiran/Ojomu Land is Oba Akinloye’s insistent on appropriating the entire Ojomu Chieftaincy land form himself and his cronies.

We will cite few instances to showcase this level of greed and desperation.
There were initially five signatories to all land Deeds of the Ojomu Family. Upon the demise of three of them and their subsequent replacement by their families, the duo of Oba Akinloye and Alhaji Bakare have insisted on being the only two individuals to execute documents on behalf of the family. The sale of the family land in conducted in an opaque manner such that a significant portion of our patrimony has been sold by the greedy duo without any account made to the family. Despite the Billions of Naira made from sale of family land, there is no development in Ajiran Land.

Every benefit that is supposed to accrue to the Community is cornered by Oba Akinloye and Alhaji Bakare, either for themselves or their biological children. Mr Jide Akinloye the son of Oba Akinloye represented Eti Osa Federal Constituency for 8 years and there is practically no developmental project that can be traced to him.

In several letters written to the Governor and other governmental agencies the Community has consistently frowned at the subterranean attempt by the traditional ruler and his ally to change legal representatives for the purpose of all Deeds of Assignment of portions of land forming part of our communal Land (Ojomu Chieftaincy Family Land). Instructively, the two lawyers recommended by the traditional Ruler were members of his immediate family and that of his ally Alhaji Yekeni Bakare. The Kabiyesi has attempted to change the lawyers appointed by the Family to his son, Mr. Jide Akinloye of Akinloye and Associates and Mrs Lateefat Haleem-Bakare of Rosewood Legal, the daughter in law of his ally, Alh. Yekini Bakare.

The community has made it clear to the Oba that act of unilaterally removing the family lawyer and replacing them with his son and the daughter-in law of his co-conspirator, Alhaji Bakare ‘unfair, immoral and illegal’. Sensing it as a plot to deny them of their common patrimony, the community threatened to approach the court if the decision was not reversed.

There are sacred facts to show that the traditional ruler has an incurable propensity at expropriating the family land for his selfish interests and only gaslighting the public to deflect attention away from his shameful conduct. His real intention is to convert communal land to personal property.

The Kabiyesi has infact made several allegations against indigenes of the Ajiran Community and the Ojomu Family to the Police. At each of the times he and his ally chickened out when it was time to present evidence in support of their allegations.

In the face of the above hard and irrefutable facts, it is vacuous for any paid agent to adorn the traditional ruler in roses and question the community’s right to defend their common patrimony and heritage. The Youth Forum led Tajudeen Ahmed has the mandate of the community to raise questions regarding the greed and blatant stealing of collective patrimony that the Oba and his ally have engaged in.

The wicked runs when no one pursues him. There really is no need for anyone to engage in preemptive and offensive propaganda if there was no skeleton to hide. We are compelled at this juncture to advise the Oba to act his role as the custodian of our culture and value and leave land speculation to those suited for it. It is the sick that needs a physician.

It is Oba Akinloye and Alhaji Yekini Bakare that are the land grabbers not Tajudeen Ahmed, not members of the Ojomu Youth Forum and not the teeming members of the Ojomu Family whose patrimony the greedy duo of Oba Akinloye and Alhaji Yekini Bakare have attempted to transfer to their own biological children

Wasiu Yekini
Secretary, Ojomu Youth Forum and the Concerned Indigenes of Ajiran Land.