The Shangisha/Magodo Landlords Association has called on the Lagos State Government to comply with a Supreme Court judgment awarding its members 549 plots of land, saying the community has waited more than four decades for justice.
Chairman of the Association, Chief Adebayo Adeyiga said the government acquired the land in 1984 and 1985 on the pretext that it was needed for an international-standard hospital.
Members were displaced and their homes demolished as a result, he said, but the hospital was never built. Instead, the Association later discovered the land had been subdivided and allocated to private individuals.
Adeyiga said the group approached the government with evidence of the discrepancy and was promised alternative plots under what became known as Magodo Scheme II, but the promise was never fulfilled.
Adeyiga alleged that the proposed resolution was never implemented, prompting the association to commence legal proceedings in 1988 in Suit No. ID/795/88, involving himself and six others against the Lagos State Government.
He said the government continued development activities on the disputed land despite court orders, leading the association to seek an interlocutory injunction, which was granted on October 19, 1992. He also alleged that he was attacked and permanently injured in 1994 by a government task force and accompanying thugs during the dispute.
The Lagos State High Court, according to the association, subsequently delivered judgment in its favour on December 31, 1993, ordering the state government to allocate 549 plots from the disputed land to the association as first choice of preference.The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court ruling in 2001, and the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the judgment in February 2012.
A further Supreme Court sitting concluded in February 2024, which the Association said again ordered the government to allocate the plots and warned against reopening the case.In 2022, members briefly sealed estate gates on the disputed land but suspended the action after an intervention by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
The Association said the government has since taken no meaningful steps to comply with the court’s orders.Adeyiga said the Association had pursued the matter through lawful means and that the judiciary had fulfilled its role, leaving compliance as a matter for the executive branch.
He appealed to civil society organisations to support the group’s enforcement demand and called on the National Assembly to investigate the dispute and question individuals allegedly involved.
The Association said several of the original litigants have died awaiting implementation of the judgment, leaving the case to their descendants, and warned that continued delay risks turning the 41-year dispute into a case of justice permanently denied.
Hadizat Giwa