Lawyers for Reform Group and Centre for Human and Socio-economic Rights have called for the establishment of a Special Anti-Land Grabbing and Fraud Task Force Unit in the Nigeria Police Force.

The special operatives must undergo forensic investigation training to detect fake title documents, the group said.

The Project Director of the group, Oladotun Hassan, made the call while speaking with journalists in Lagos, recently.

He said, “It is expedient for the Inspector-General of Police to also look into land-related offences as the same as terrorism because land grabbers harass and place their victims under intense fear as well as destroy ruthlessly. In addition, the need for the establishment of a Special Anti-Land Grabbing and Fraud Task Force Unit in the Nigeria Police Force, whose operatives must undergo forensic investigation training to detect fake title documents is essential.

“The unit must also follow strict legal guidelines, and collaborate with the Nigerian Bar Association in ensuring this sensitive department functions well. We call the urgent attention of President Bola Tinubu to abolish the Land Use Act 1978 and promulgate a new law to register, and regulate the administration of land matters under the establishment of the National Land Licensing and Allocation Authority to end the ongoing notorious land racketeering menace, where civil servants act in connivance in issuing fictitious and fake documents to dispossess genuine land owners of their properties. By that, several times, the ancestral communities with age-long history had suffered from these recurring dangers most often in Lagos State.”

He further urged the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to commence strict land audit regulations of all allotted lands and to deregister any land allocated with fake and forged title documents and surveys.

“In addition, we are equally aware of the several other cases involving notorious lands grabbers within Ikorodu, Ibeju-Lekki, and Eti-Osa involving properties worth billions of naira destroyed without any compensation,” he added.

In the same vein, The President, Centre for Human and Socio-economic Rights, Alex Omotehinse, expressed concerns over the collaboration of government officials who registered lands twice with two different names.

Omotehinse, lamented that land-grabbing activities had spread across Lagos despite the anti-land grabbing agency. He called on the Lagos state government to ensure that all land grabbers were made to face the law, as many lives and properties had been lost due to the menace.

In this article