Landlords and residents of Iraye, in the Eredo Local Council Development Area of Lagos State, have lamented the continued presence of soldiers in the community.
PUNCH Metro gathered that soldiers stormed the community sometime in September 2022 and started notifying residents of their intention to demolish property in the Lenuwa, Ayeni and Adeyoruwa areas.
The soldiers were said to have arrested no fewer than 10 persons, who were reportedly subjected to different forms of torture.
The Deputy Baale, Iraye-Oke, Kazeem Anwoju, while addressing journalists during a press conference on Friday in Ikeja, said the Nigerian Army did not have any land in the area.
Anwoju said, “Historically, Iraye-Oke is one of the communities that make up Epe but we are under Eredo LCDA. Soldiers came to Epe in 1970 and built their barracks there. In 1975, the soldiers left Epe and their barracks is now the LASU campus.
“But about a year ago, the soldiers returned to Epe, left their barracks and started encroaching on Iraye community land. They have been harassing and beating our people. As I speak with you, the soldiers are in Iraye community, fighting our people over our land.
“We never had any agreement with them; we are sad and we want the government and Nigerians to help us out. The Army do not have land in our community; they never bought any portion of land from us and never asked us about the land but just came suddenly and started doing what is not right on our land.”
Anwoju said efforts on getting the government to restore normalcy in the community proved abortive.
He said, “The Army arrested 10 indigenes and took them to their barracks inside the LASU campus in Epe and beat them.
“They are encroaching on our land; they came and started saying they wanted to mark houses for demolition. We don’t know why and we don’t have anything with the Army. They came to our land and started erecting pillars, claiming the land belongs to them.
“We petitioned the Lagos State Government but nothing was done; we also approached the 81 Division and what we were told was that they were posted there and that there was nothing they could do except to report to the higher authority. We have contacted the Army authorities in Abuja but got no response.”
An indigene, Gbenga Ibrahim, who was part of those arrested by the soldiers, said they were subjected to different forms of torture.
Ibrahim said, “In September 2022, I and some members of our family were working on a portion of land in the community when we suddenly saw soldiers storming the premises and started asking what we were doing on their land. The next thing was that they started beating us; they asked us to roll on the floor and do frog jumps.
“For hours, we were asked to roll on the ground and they collected all our mobile phones. They later tied our clothes together, put us inside a contractor’s truck and took us to their barracks where we were asked to do push-ups on hot granite. They later gave us cutlasses to start cutting grass until one of our uncles came to secure our release.”
The spokesperson for the Nigerian Army, 81 Division, Olaniyi Osoba, asked the community to lodge a complaint at his office.
“Some civilians encroached on some Army land but we don’t know whether theirs is part of it. But when they come, there is a committee that looks into land issues that will look into it,” he added.
