The Commanding Officer, 174 Battalion, Nigerian Army, Odogunyan, Ikorodu, Lt. Col. Seyi Sholotan, has shunned a second invitation extended to him by the Lagos State Taskforce on Land Grabbers.
Sholotan is locked in a dispute with an engineer, Adewole Adeleye, over the ownership of a piece of land on Bashorun Street, Alagomeji, Yaba, Lagos State.
Adeleye had petitioned the task force following an alleged invasion of the land by Sholotan with soldiers on more than three occasions.
The task force, in a letter by its Coordinator, Owolabi Arole, first invited Sholotan to a hearing at the meeting room of the Lagos State Ministry of Justice Annex on March 23, 2022.
But the military officer was said to have been absent after which the hearing was adjourned until April 13.
Again, on April 13, Sholotan was absent from the hearing of the task force as Adeleye urged the Army hierarchy, particularly the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, to intervene in the matter.
Meanwhile, Arole said another chance would be given to Sholotan to appear before the task force as the matter was adjourned until May 11, 2022.
The army officer claimed to have bought the land from one Ahmed Olorunmbe.
Adeleye, who said he was the valid owner of the land with a registered title at Alausa, had in March 2021 also reported Olorunimbe to the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Alagbon, for alleged encroachment.
Olorunimbe was invited for questioning by the police and was later released on bail.
Insisting that he owned the land, Sholotan said he bought it from Olorunimbe in 2017 before he was deployed in the North-East on a military operation.
He said when he returned to Lagos, he visited the land and Olorunimbe told him someone else (Adeleye) was claiming it.
The army officer said the case had been investigated by the military police and that he was found to have validly bought the land.
Sholotan, in a telephone conversation with our correspondent, vowed not to honour the invitation of the task force until the military authorities ordered him to do so.
He said, “This same Adeleye has gone to my division in the Army to report me and when an investigation was launched, they found out that I am the real owner of the land. Until my division tells me to report to any task force, I will not honour any invitation.
“That last invitation by the task force, I was in Port Harcourt. I will not report to any task force until my division tells me to do so.”
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