New Telegraph

Lagos community, firm bicker over dredging site

The case of alleged illegal dredging at Lagasa ommunity, a suburb of Ibeju Lekki Local Government of Lagos State, has taken another dimension with the continuous protest by residents of the community for Dilly Motors, a company involved in dredging in the area, to vacate.

 

The community started their protest on Wednesday, April 20 and continued on Thursday, April 21, with protesters, consisting of men and women chanting solidarity songs. They displayed placards with various inscriptions, such as: ‘President Muhammadu Buhari please intervene’, ‘‘Hon. Minister of Mines please investigate illegal dredging in Lagasa Community’, among others.

 

They also prevented trucks from entering the dredging site despite the presence of police in the area. Speaking on behalf of the community, the Odofin of Ibeju Lekki, Chief Shamsudeen Baruwa Odofin, said the community or its leadership did not give the company consent (either verbally or in writing) for the purpose of the application for a cadastral license with the Federal Ministry of Mines or the Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office (NMCO) in Abuja.

 

Alleged harassment

Odofin noted that Dilly Motors had been harassing the community with armed men, stressing that the company used its influence to procure an order from the ministry asking the other dredging companies on the ground to vacate the site. He said the community was agitating among others that Dilly Motors should vacate their community.

He said: “Lagasa Community did not give Dilly Motors any consent to operate. Rather than seek a peaceful resolution to the matter, the company is terrorizing us with armed men and thugs using guns and matches.

“The company is not the first dredging company in the community because we have had a lot of companies before them but the company has decided to import gunmen and area boys in our community just to continue the illegal activity. Today, when you get to the seaside, there are armed policemen there and area boys terrorizing the community.

“The license with him is not original but he kept on saying that the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development gave him license to operate without the consent of the community. So we want the government to come to our rescue over this issue and restore peace in our community.”

 

Another leader of the community, Adesina Salisu, alleged Dilly Motors is a known and regular trouble maker because he has the backing of some top officials in the Federal Ministry of Mines. He said that the chairman of the company boasted that the Lagasa Community cannot send him away and that the ministry will never look at their petitions.

 

“The company does not have any land or landed property in Lagasa Community, and as such he is not a stakeholder in the community. The leaders and people of Lagasa Community did not at any time give Dilly Motors consent (either verbally or in writing) for the purpose of the application for a cadastral license with the federal ministry of mines or Mining cadastral Office in Abuja, so whatever consent he presented to the ministry is fake, and should be investigated.

“At the meeting convened by the Honourable Minister of Mines and Steel in Abuja where all relevant mines organs and department of the federal ministry of mines, and the dredging companies in Lagasa Community, the community leaders dissociated themselves from the falsified consent letter presented by Dilly Motors.

 

“Therefore, we want the minister of mines and the Mines’ Cadastral Office to give attention to the petitions before them from the community and other dredging operators from Lagasa.

 

And the minister should investigate the relationship between Dilly Motors and the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, and direct her to steer clear of the Lagasa issues. We are  calling on President Muhammadu Buhari, Lagos State Government and other wellmeaning Nigerians to come to our rescue.”

 

Valid documents

But in a swift reaction, the Chief Executive Officer of Dilly Motors Limited, Mr Okwudili Umenyiora, dismissed the allegations against the company, saying that he had been operating at the site since 2019 without any issues with the community until this year.

He alleged that the problem at the dredging site was instigated by a faction of community leaders disloyal to the Baale of Lagasa. Umenyiora said there was no overlapping title in the said land his company was dredging as being insinuated by the community because he has all the necessary documents to operate the site.

He expressed surprise at the length the other operators went to paint the ministry of mines in a bad light. He said the ministry did due diligence in giving him the title to the land, stressing that all his documents were duly signed by the Baale and the Federal Ministry of Mines.

“All relevant documents and consent  given to me to operate at the site were fully signed by the bona fide ruler of the community, Chief Lamidi Ajoro, the Basket of Lagasa town.

So, once the demarcation was done, they found out that the other operators were not supposed to be dredging on my title because basically, the area in which that title was domiciled was different from the area in which they were dredging. So where Borrow Pits, Stockpile and other dredging companies are extracting sand are all inside my title.

Based on that conclusion, an officer from the Federal Ministry of Mines wrote a memo and gave them “a stop work order” and told them that they should evacuate the Dilly Motors title within 72 hours. Basically, there’s a small problem in the community. That’s the truth.

The community is divided. “The Baale is old and the other community leaders are fighting about it. So they are in court, that’s why we could find ourselves in this kind of precarious situation. So, if the consent of other operators was signed by Awoyaya/Dongo of Ibeju Lekki and not the Baale of Lagasa village, then what are they doing in Lagasa? So, that’s basically what I have to say.

My consent letter was duly signed by the Baale of Lagasa community, who is still alive,” he said. Umenyiora also denied the allegation that he was terrorizing the community with heavily armed security men and cutlass-wielding thugs.

He said he only used policemen to enforce his right to operate the site. “That is totally untrue. You know, when you are given a title, under the mining title, and in the mining industry, the laws are very strong.

 

“If the Federal Government gives you a title, and you invest like five million dollars, that is not to say that the community can come up tomorrow and ask you to stop work, requesting $20,000 per week.

 

That is why those laws are made stringent like that to protect the titleholder. So, I was using enforcement and law, to try and stop the illegal operators from mining on my title. “And every day, every time I try to use enforcement and law to stop those illegal operators from operating on my title, the other part of the villages will come to attack us.”

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