Farmers Accuse Olakiitan Olafinmihan of Land Fraud in Sanusi Camp, Call on Aiyedatiwa for Help
…Our Farms Destroyed, Our Hopes Dashed, We Have Nowhere Else to Go, says victims…….
More than a thousand farmers operating in the Aba Sanusi area of Owo Local Government, a government-reserved area in Ondo State, have cried out to Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa over an alleged large scale land grabbing scandal involving a certain Mr. Olakiitan Olafimihan.
The aggrieved farmers, in a formal petition, are calling on the governor and relevant state authorities to intervene urgently in what they describe as an orchestrated attempt to rob them of their farmlands and livelihood.
According to the petition, Mr. Olakiitan Olafimihan was initially entrusted with the responsibility of collecting revenue from farmers on behalf of the government. However, rather than remit the collected fees to the appropriate authorities, he is accused of diverting the funds to unlawfully acquire vast portions of the land.
After allegedly using the revenue to purchase the land for himself, Mr. Olafimihan reportedly resold the same farmland to over a thousand farmers, who, after making payments, began cultivating the land. Shockingly, the farmers claim he later returned to resell these same lands to other individuals for non-agricultural purposes, including business establishments, building construction, and trailer parks.
In a particularly disturbing turn of events, Mr. Olafimihan allegedly deployed bulldozers to destroy crops and plantations already established by the initial buyers. Eyewitnesses confirmed that over 35 hectares of farmland already paid for and cultivated by farmers was recently sold to another party for the development of a trailer park.
“We are calling on the Ondo State Government to intervene before this situation worsens,” the farmers lamented.
“Farming is all we know. This is how we feed our families, pay our taxes, and sponsor our children’s education. Many of us have nowhere else to go, and if we lose these lands, we lose everything.”
The farmers are urging Governor Aiyedatiwa to investigate the matter, recover the encroached lands, and bring the alleged perpetrator to justice.
They are also appealing for the government’s protection and the restoration of their rights to the farmland they legally paid for.
