By Gbenga Ojikutu
The Ekiti State Government, has ordered the constitution of an expanded committee to resolve the lingering land dispute emanating between Okemesi and Ikoro communities over the ownership of Ajindo community.
Speaking during a peace parley held in Ado Ekiti with stakeholders from the towns to broker truce over the land crisis, on Thursday, the Deputy Governor, Chief (Mrs) Monisade Afuye, directed each of the towns to nominate five members into the committee.
in a statement by her Special Assistant on Media, Victor Ogunje, Mrs Afuye, warned against any attack or bloodshed, urging the committee, headed by the Permanent Secretary, Office of the Deputy Governor, Mr. Abayomi Opeyemi to handle the matter with transparency.
Other members include the Solicitor General and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Mr Sunday Bamise, Surveyor General of Ekiti State, Surveyor Adebayo Faleto, Secretary of Boundary Commission, Surveyor Olalekan Olajide, among others.
The intervention was sequel to the petition written by Olukoro of Ikoro, Oba Adebanji Adeleye, complaining that Okemesi of flouting the 1978 supreme Court judgement, awarding ownership of Ajindo Village to Ikoro town, and ordered Okemesi to pay land rent to the owners.
In the petition, Olukoro accused Okemesi of breaching the directive and appealed to the state government to order Owa Ooye, Oba Adedeji Gbadebo to accede to all that were stipulated in the court’s verdict.
Presenting their cases at the parley, Olukoro, who spoke via the former Health Commissioner, Dr. Femi Thomas, said the Supreme Court judgement of 1978 revealed that the residents of Ajindo were Okemesi people, but the land belongs to Ikoro town.
Oba Adeleye said it was on that basis that the court directed Okemesi to be paying rent to the owners of the land, which the monarch said had stoutly been defied.
Subsequently, the monarch demanded that all the schools, health facilities and residents therein in Ajindo Village should be placed under Eso Obe Local Council Development Area, with headquarters in Ikoro Ekiti.
He said: “The most traumatising was the fact that Ikoro indigenes were being harassed on their own land. We are not allergic to having a robust round table discussion on this matter because the hostility must stop. We are not enemies, but the right thing must be done.
“We are not going to evict anyone from that land, but the right thing must be done by government”.
Responding, the Owa Ooye of Okemesi, Oba Adedeji Gbadebo, disclosed that he only heard about the Apex Court’s judgement and the petition written to government, but has not received hard copies for his people to respond appropriately.
The monarch, who traced the trajectory of the land dispute to 1961, shortly after Nigerian Independence, stated that there wasn’t any hostility between the two towns and that the current land dispute won’t be allowed to throw a spanner in the wheel of their relationship.
However, in the report dated January 15, 2024, provided by Okemesi Ekiti and read at the meeting by Chief Goke Omidiran, Oba Gbadebo, said Okemesi had for over a century been installing the Olu of Ajindo and that nobody from Ikoro had ever contested this traditional entitlement.
He disagreed with the request by Olukoro that the village should be ceeded to Eso- Obe LCDA, saying this was not contained in the supreme Court judgement and that the state government that created that council has not made such pronouncement.
Oba Gbadebo added that Yoruba history allows for mobility, resettlement and full assimilation of persons, adding that this shouldn’t be a reason for people to be paying rent on a land they have settled on over 350 years.
“We disagreed with our people paying rent generally, but I want to say that those who fall on the portion of the land that belongs to Ikoro should pay rent and I have evidence that they have been paying rent up to date.
“Wars had been fought on this land, lives and properties had been lost, so there must be demarcation and the government must do that to avoid conflict. Whatever happens, we are ready for peace. We are ready to join the Ikoro people for amicable resolution of this crisis”.
