Lagos Real Estate Firm Petitions IGP Over Demolition Of Ikeja GRA Property
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Nigercat Nigeria Limited has petitioned Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu, alleging that police operatives demolished part of its property at Oduduwa Crescent, Ikeja GRA, and replaced its gate.
A Lagos State-based real estate company, Nigercat Nigeria Limited, has accused operatives of the Special Enquiry Bureau (SEB) attached to the Lagos State Police Command of unlawful invasion, demolition and removal of its property at Oduduwa Crescent, Ikeja GRA.
The company alleged that the police operatives, acting on the instruction of one Oladimeji Oladosu, stormed the property and pulled down parts of the structure before carting away its gate and installing a new one.
Chairman of Nigercat Nigeria Limited, Alhaji Osuolale, who disclosed this in Lagos, called on the Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, to order a comprehensive investigation into the incident and call the operatives to order. According to him, the action of the police amounts to taking sides in a purely civil matter without conducting a thorough investigation.
“The police in Lagos have turned themselves to agents of land grabbing before adequate investigation into whatever complaints that were reported to them,” the businessman said, insisting that the property belongs to him and his company and that there is no pending litigation challenging its ownership in any court.
Giving details of the incident, Alhaji Osuolale said the police had earlier scheduled a fact-finding meeting for Monday to look into a petition filed against him over the property, but that officers allegedly invaded the premises a day before the meeting and demolished the structure.
He said he had taken steps to regularise his interest in the property with the Lagos State Government, including payment of the necessary statutory fees, and that the dispute being investigated by the police arose from a claim that the property had been leased to another person for 10 years.