Trouble Looms As Kwara Poly destroys Lands of Host Villagers with bulldozers, Tags Them Encroachers
…gun throttling soldiers, NSCDC take positions at strategic locations.
By Wole Adedeji, Ilorin.
An uneasy calm now pervades the air at the main campus of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin and Gaata Village; one of its host communities over alleged invasion of the village and destruction of their cash crops by the institution, using force.
The Nigerian Xpress gathered that a detachment of heavily armed security personnel made up of the Police, the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) invaded Gaata Village stormed the community and were accompanied by officials of the Polytechnic to supervise a DX 8 Caterpillar Bulldozer which allegedly commenced demolition of cash crops of the villagers.
The state ‘Operation Harmny’ van used by the security men supervising the exercise
According to them, the cash crops were mainly the locust beans and baobab trees; regarded as economic trees by the natives.
It was alleged that the arrival of the gun throttling security personnel in a war-like manner was quite unbecoming particularly on the second day when the men of the NSCDC allegedly went to the front of a thatched mud house building of a 135 year old Alhaji Kadiri Abdulkareem Akanji who is the oldest man in Gaata and twelve other villages. They were said to be shooting sporadically into the air, according to one Nasiru Akanji, a grandson of the old man.
The 135 year old man who was allegedly scared by NSCDC shooting in the air.
He had said it took the mercy of God that the old man and his wife who is also in her early hundred were still alive at the time of filing this report because of the shock they suffered from the gunsounds of the NSCDC officers.
Gaata Village has about three houses with the population of less than 30 people because according to the okada man, their young adults had scattered across the country scouting for greener pastures.
The Nigerian Xpress was told that trouble started between the village in year 2005 when the present site of the Kwara State Polytechnic was pencilled to accommodate the then proposed Kwara State University and the institution was asked by the government to serve quit notices to the adjourning communities to give room for the new university.
The felled tree
However, the communities that had playing host to the school since 1971 were said to stoutly rise up against what they termed a move by the government to force them out of their ancestral homes with just a wave of hand.
The apparently charged villagers in their hundreds according to sources made the government to change its stand to look for an alternative location in the present University campus at Malete for peace to reign.
It was also disclosed that the charged atmosphere at the time got to a boiling point when the institution went ahead to mark some houses in the communities for demolition which sparked a violent resistance from the people thereby posing strong threats to the long standing convivial and peaceful relationships between the school and its host communities since 1973.
The frayed nerves was said to have raged between 2004 and 2005 before it was calmed down with the decision of the government to relocate the proposed University to Malete, a distant location in Moro Local Government
However, by July 29th, 2005, the Polytechnic was said to have dragged the State Government, the Ministry of Lands and Housing, the State Director of Lands and ten Villages with their heads on behalf of themselves and their respective villages to court in a suit no KWS/95/2005 to send the villagers packing.
The court case dragged on to 2016 when the hearing Judge; Hon. Justice S.M Akanbi struck out the case for lack of diligent prosecution.
When contacted for his side of the story, the Polytechnic Rector; Dr. Abdul Jimoh who assembled his management staff to attend to this reporter said the court case in question was fake and it never existed.
He said the institution was however set this time around to “claim its lands from encroachers who had been disturbing the Polytechnic over the years to make good use of its lands”.
According to him, they were clearing the vast land by the Gaata village to commence a training farm for their Agriculture students pointing out that the earlier established farms for the same purposed were bungled by the host communities who put up violent resistances on each occasion.
Also, the Counsel that represented the communities including Gaata in the court case; Mr. J.S Gbadeyan of Deji Gbadeyan & Co. said it was “funny that the Polytechnic could say a properly instituted court case initiated by the same institution where lawyers on both sides appeared for a period of eleven years could be said to be fake by the same claimant who spent public fund to prosecute it”.
” My brother, we shall meet in court particularly when the institution is coming up now after its case on the same subject had been struck out and it is not even coming with any court order to do so. It has destroyed the livelihood and heritage of innocent Nigerians for no just cause. This sad development must not be f allowed to go unchallenged”, Gbadeyan stressed.