Following an alleged arrest and detention of the Heads of the Itusi Baba Ode Royal family, Taofeek Oduasanyin and Apewo Oduasanyin on July 31 to August 6, by officers of the Nigeria Police attached to the Eleweran Police Command in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the brothers have filed a suit at the Ogun State High Court, Ota, for the enforcement of their fundamental rights.

The suit filed by Taiwo Ogunleye on behalf of the brothers, is asking the court to declare that their arrest and detention within those days by the Police is unlawful, unconstitutional, oppressive, and a violation of their rights guaranteed by the 1999 constitution (as amended).

The claimants added that the continuous intimidation, threat of arrest and detention of them and members of their family by the Police is illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.

They stressed that the prevention of the family from going in and out of their bonafide landed properties at Itusi family land, Ilogbo Baba Ode in Ado-Odo, Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State, is also illegal, unconstitutional and ultra vires of the powers of the Police.

The suit is also asking the Court to restrain the Police from interfering in the land dispute, especially one on which there is a valid court judgment retraining the Police with their agents or servants from further using coercive force to harass, arrest, detain, threaten or intimidate them or members of their family on account of the full exercise of their bonafide ownership and possessory rights on their landed properties as judicially confirmed by the courts.

They want an order of the court directing the respondents to pay N50 million separately as compensation to each of them, comprising Taofeek Oduasanyin, Apewo Oduasanyin, Mr. Bankole Michael and Mr. Andrew Sunday for the violation of their rights.

That right, they insist, is guaranteed under the 1999 constitution of Nigeria (as altered).

The claimants want the court to order N2 million and N1.6 million allegedly carted away during their arrest returned to them by the Police.

Taofeek Odunsayin recalled that he wrote a petition to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, on the lingering mayhem unleashed by land grabbers who turned his community into a battlefield of a sort, lamenting that he had earlier written over 33 petitions, Save Our Souls (SOS) letters, appeals, pleas, and entreaties to several security outfits.

He stated that he had written to succeeding Inspector Generals of Police, Attorneys-General of Ogun State, Speakers of the House of Representatives, speakers of Ogun State House of Assembly, commissioners of Police in Ogun State, Heads of the General Investigation Department, Area 10, Garki, Abuja; the Directors of Public Prosecution (DPPs), Ogun State, and the Executive Governors of the state on the horrors inflicted by land-grabbers on residents of the community without any respite.

Odunsayin said: “All the petitions we wrote are centred on a particular notorious land-grabber who is known to the government, security officials, judges and agencies of the state but could not bring him to order.

“They would rather choose to collude with him to ravage poor farmers, tenants, landowners, property developers and land speculators from living in peace and bringing development to our community and the state in general.

“Why have the land grabbers not been brought to book despite the several petitions I have written against them since 2019, flagrantly refusing to appear before anybody?” He asked.

“Even when one of them was invited, nothing was done to him or his group members,” he stated. (The Guardian, but headline rejigged)