By Bose Adelaja & Adetomiwa Adewoyin
…Calls for concrete evidence
CITIZENS COMPASS—The Lagos State Government has promised to investigate allegations of land grabbing and cloning of Certificates of Occupancy (C of Os) in some high-brow areas in the State.
Ekundayo Harry Adeola, Head of Public Affairs, Land Bureau, disclosed this in a recent chat with Citizens Compass.
Adeola urged anyone having concrete evidence of land grabbing and cloning of C of Os to come forward.
The state government’s response followed a recent allegation by a concerned resident about a new wave of land grabbing by unscrupulous elements in the government.
At a recent press conference in Lagos, the Group Managing Director of the CFL Group, Lai Omotola, described the new wave of land grabbing bedeviling the Centre of Excellence as “Land Title Laundry”, which involves forging documents and property titles and processing them in some parts of the State, especially in high-brow areas like Ikoyi or Victoria Island.
He urged the state government to act fast before the trend gets out of hand.
According to Omotola: Over the years, we have seen and heard of Land title cloning and forgery in Lagos State to obtain millions and billions of naira in return.
A lot of banks fell victim to cloned Lagos C of O’s, so that they get to discover the forgery only when the loan enters default.
During the tenure of Governor Ambode, he ordered the demolition of the market opposite the government house where forged C of O’s are issued, and as of today it’s a pedestrian bridge that passes the Land, and the market is no more.
However, because of the huge money and highly placed persons both inside and outside the government involved, they have perfected a new dimension.
The new scam is what they have renamed Land Title Laundry (LTL).
Mode of operations
They usually look for abandoned land in Ikoyi or Victoria Island because of the high premium attached to property in these two highbrow areas. They will look for a prominent name that has passed on to put as the owner of such land. They then go to Oluwole market to forge land certificates backdated to the 70s, where documents are no longer available. They prepare this Land certificate outside the government system. Once the document is ready, they have staff in Alausa working in the Land Registry who will insert the documents into the system. Immediately after this is achieved, the title document will automatically become the original. To cure this defect, they will declare the original a lost document and go and swear an affidavit to the Police that the original is lost.
In a chat with Citizens Compass, Adeola said: When you get a landed property, the first step in securing it is processing its title document and the survey plan, while the second step is getting vital information about it.
The spokesperson said the third step is contacting the Lands Bureau, which is an arm of the State government.
By doing so, the arm will give you your land title documentation.
Once you get that done, the C of O, governor’s consent, and any other documentation that proves you are a land owner are valid, so if anybody grabs your land, you can take the person to court.
If a land grabber grabs another person’s land, the Lagos State Government has set up a committee on Land Grabbers; the affected people can visit the committee with their relevant documents, and the committee will sort them out.
The court will look at all the documentation to determine the rightful owner. For instance, the court will establish who between the applicant and defendant applied for the C of O in 1990 or 1994.
With the evidence presented before the court, the land will be given to the first person who has the document and has done the title document.
On the alleged use of names of influential people to clone C of O, he said: Well, such has never happened in the Lands Bureau. If there is evidence, the people involved should come up with it because our ministry deals with evidence, facts, and figures, as there are mechanisms for that; you cannot just bring any title from outside and insert it into our registry; it is impossible because there are processes, and you cannot go through that without the officials detecting it. There is nothing of the sort that has happened or is happening in the Lands Bureau.
I am not aware of such cases; if there are allegations anywhere, the people concerned should personally reach out to me because I am the head of public affairs in the Lands Bureau. Let the person come directly to the office with evidence
He should come with concrete evidence, and we will treat it accordingly and address it.
Adeola did not respond to further questions by Citizens Compass, especially about the date and year the committee was formed, names of the committee members, and the chairman.
Also, the spokesperson was mum when asked about how many cases the committee has treated and which of the cases was most challenging.
When asked to release a contact number to members of the public, he was mute.
