Lagos State House of Assembly Plans Three Years Jail for Land Grabbers

Adeyemi Ikuforiji

Lagos State House of Assembly has proposed a three-year jail term for persons found to have engaged in forcible occupation of landed properties in the state.

This was one of the provisions of the state’s Properties Protection Bill, 2013 which had scaled second reading.
A statement by the Assembly on Thursday, said the bill was meant to discourage the use of force over any landed property in the state.

Chairman, Committee on Lands and Housing, Bayo Osinowo, expressed the confidence that the bill would address atrocities committed by land grabbers.
Osinowo said, “About 60 per cent of Certificates of Occupancy in circulation are fake. The bill is expected to correct this anomaly.

“In Lagos State, land is our major resource. It is our petrol compared to oil-producing states in the country. Therefore, nothing is too much to protect its sanctity.”
Another lawmaker, Sanai Agunbiade, explained that the bill would also take care of land agents who seized landed properties forcibly.

He said, “The bill will protect potential buyers from omo-onile before and during construction work.”
He further explained that the bill stipulated a fine of N200,000 or three years imprisonment for any person found guilty.
“The bill also states that anyone found with chemical, firearms and other weapons over land matters will be liable to death sentence,” he said.

However, a lawmaker,  Mudasiru Obasa, had a contrary view on the proposed bill. He argued that the existing law should be able to take care of any issue that arose over land, adding that no new law was required.
The bill was given to the Committee on Lands and Housing and that of Judiciary, Human Rights and Public Petitions. They are expected to report back in a month’s time.

July 05, 2013