OAU, Ife Land Dispute:: Ife Community Urges OAU To Approach Court
The Ile-Ife community in Osun State has called on the authorities of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife to approach the court for settlement of the land in dispute between the two parties.
OAU authorities had accused some people it described as land Speculators/Land grabbers of encroaching on their land warning such people of the consequence of their actions.
But yesterday at a press conference addressed by the President of Ife development board, Comrade Jire Awowoyin, he described OAU as the one stepping beyond the boundary of their land.
The board also urged the Federal government especially the Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu to set up a panel to investigate the truth of the matter.
According to him “OAU management is trespassing into our land and the contention there is that if someone is trespassing into your land you go to court,go and challenge it, it’s not a propaganda, it is not an issue of blackmailing, we are waiting for them to go to court and bring out their evidences”
Comrade Awowoyin stressed that “the painful area of this issue is that most of the land they claimed has been sold, leased out by the management of the school, therefore Ife cannot keep silent and be looking like this.”
“If they bring people to come and destroy our property we will also send people to them to send them away, we are calling on law enforcement agencies to warn OAU not to trespass into our land, go to the OAU management and ask for the document backing the land they are claiming “
He stressed that available data from Surveyor General’s office indicated the total land area given was 13,852 Acres adding that the land is bounded by river Opa and Amuta stream to the south and east as clearly marked on the plan survey no
He also remarked that the newly built ppp hostels, Moremi High school, university junior staff quarters were built on community land owned by various families of which some of whom have been relocated to other areas in anticipation of the grant.