Posted by By Moyo Fabiyi / Ajakaye Busuyi on
About 50 fully armed policemen, this morning, stormed the sawmill at Ojodu-Berger, and destroyed the market.
About 50 fully armed policemen, this morning, stormed the sawmill at Ojodu-Berger, and destroyed the market.
When P.M.News visited the sawmill, traders were seen wailing and lamenting their inability to rescue their wares which were destroyed by the policemen. The gun-wielding policemen did not allow anybody, including P.M.News' reporter, to move near them or the sawmill.
Armed with a caterpillar operated by a young man in his mid-twenties, the policemen destroyed all the stalls in the market and a newly built one-storey building. President of the plank sellers Association of Nigeria, Lagos state branch, Prince Sulaimon Oladokun, who also has a stall in the sawmill, was not around to comment on the destruction.
But an official of the group described the demolition as a power show by Kayode Agbetusin, a party to the land dispute. The official alleged that Agbetusin invited the policemen in defiance of a pending court case with the owner of the sawmill, Alhaji Yinusa Kukoyi, who he said purchased the land from the Olofin Family, since 1981.
A trader in the sawmill, Mrs. Aremu, corroborated the claim by the market leader that the market had been in existence for more than 30 years. She added that the land tussle had been a subject of litigation for some years but the landlord assured the traders he had court backing.
She told P.M.News that the last time a similar demolition was carried out, her landlord told the traders that the court described the destroyers as 'unknown persons.'