Oyo Gov, Makinde faces lawsuit over alleged land-grabbing

Michael Lana, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate for governor in the upcoming 2023 elections in Oyo State, declared on Wednesday that he intended to file a lawsuit against Governor Seyi Makinde for alleged illegal purchase of land.

He said that the current Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led administration headed by Makinde had taken over certain lands, depriving nearly 5,000 residents of their rights.

The SDP candidate said he intended to engage the government on setback given to the outer ring road, which was originally 75 meters and increased to 500 meters by the current administration, during a speech in Ibadan at a program organized by the Political Commission of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Oyo State chapter, titled “One on One with Oyo Workers.”

He said, “The setback has deprived over 5,000 villagers of their land, I will reverse it if I become the governor, and if I don’t win, I will still sue the government. You can not just take people’s land for private investment, it is unlawful and illegal.”

He also said he would review the acquisition of land for the free trade zone from Guru Mahara Ji to the boundary between Oyo and Ogun State along the Lagos/Ibadan expressway, saying it was wrong under the law to acquire land for a particular purpose and use it for another purpose.

READ ALSO:Oyo APC warns residents against voting Gov Makinde for second term

“If I become the governor, I will create anti-land grabbing law which will fight for the right of our citizens free of charge so that they can get their land back from any land grabbers, if you want anybody’s land, tell them, pay for it, and they will sell it to you.

“Under the town planning law, the governor is supposed to break every city and town into schemes so that there can be agricultural scheme, industrial and residential scheme, no government has done this or created any other scheme since the military regime.

“All development in Bodija and Iyaganku is against the law, but it’s too late to reverse that. We can create other residential areas in the scheme, and we shall ensure that there are penalties in the law to restore such so that residents will not be commercial scheme, and agricultural is not turned to industrial, we shall do all these through the agency.”

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