When Engineer Olufemi Fasehun got appointed as the administrator of his father’s estate in 2003, nowhere in his wildest imagination could he have conceived that some fifteen to twenty years later, he would be having a serious battle over his land inheritance.
On the 10th of January, 1961, Engr. Femi Fasehun’s father, Mr. Ebenezer Olawanle Fasehun, purchased a piece of land located at 10, Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos, from Egunaye family of Oregun with the sum of 100 pounds sterling.
Afterwards, he proceeded to register the title documents of the land, and a survey lodged with respect to the same land, was also registered alongside the document that same year.
Upon carrying out these due registration processes to legally lay claim to ownership of the land, Mr. Fasehun Senior proceeded to build a house on his land, fenced it round, and lived there with his family from 1961 till his death in 2004.
Before his death, however, he gave a power of attorney to his only male child, Engr. Femi Fasehun, to administer his estate, including the entire property located at 10, Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos.
After the man’s death, a family case involving Engr. Olufemi Fasehun Late father’s concubine and her children arose from the management of the estate where the High Court of Lagos State partitioned his father’s estate amongst the beneficiaries and following the judgment of Hon. Justice Onyeabo delivered on 10th January, 2019, the ownership of the property was given to him.
However, Since December 2021, a period during which Mr. Fasehun was outside the country, Engr. Olufemi Fasehun alleged that persons identified as Tajudeen Egunaye Alias OLUWO, Ayinde Sanni Egunaye, Alhaji Muili Oshin, Chief Taiwo Hassan, Suraju Ajose, and one Aare Tomori Williams with an alleged assistance and backing of several Baales aided by a prominent Lagos politician, forcibly entered into the same property capitalizing on the fact that he was residing abroad at the time.
Based on this occurrence, he engaged the services of private security men to protect his property from trespassers and also built security house for the convenience of the security men engaged to protect the property.
Subsequently, upon the completion of the security house and after having invested over N5, 000, 000.00 (Five Million Naira) to build the security house, the same parties listed above alongside others and with the help of armed thugs, allegedly went into the property and destroyed the gates, vandalized the fence, demolished buildings on the property, including the security house he had erected on the land.
Following these disheartening developments, Engr. Fasehun was prompted to write petition to the Assistant Inspector General of Police at Zone 2, Cominand, Onikan, Lagos State in January 2022, through his Solicitor, Otunba Remi Adeoye complaining about the alleged criminal activities, but the accused refused to honour all the invitations sent to them.
On 11th February 2023, the same faulting parties listed above in the company of several thugs, miscreants and hoodlums which were said to have been close to fifty (50) in number, allegedly forcibly broke into the same property again, demolished part the fence on the building, removed the security wires on the fence, damaged the gate at the back of the building, and broke into the residential building inside the premises.
A new twist came to the tussle when the defendants, led by Chief Tajudeen Muyile Egunaye, Aare Tomori Williams (the Oluwo of Oregun), allegedly aided and abetted by DCP Sheikh Danko, SP Sahabi Abubakar and DSP Mukaila Salami who are police men from Alagbon Police Command, locked up Mr. Fasehun’s property, which the Fasehun family has held in occupation with buildings therein since 1961.
Based on these events, his lawyers, Otunba Remi Adeoye and Femi Adisa – Isikalu have divided their arguments against the Egunayes and their co-conspirators into two: Civil Litigation and Criminality in the conducts of the accused and their accomplices.
On the Civil Litigation, in a letter addressed to the Inspector General of Police, they submitted that the invitation by the police at the instance of the accused into this matter was sub-judice and amounted to collateral attack on the jurisdiction of the Court.
They also stated that a court order restraining the accused from trespassing on Mr. Fasehun’s property had been published in several newspapers, but the accused hoodwinked the innocent police officers to join them to disobey court order.
On the other side of the matter, some of Mr. Fasehun’s opponents have also laid claim to the land in the same location arguing that it belongs to the Egunaye family by inheritance and that contrary to Mr. Fasehun’s claims, he has been caught up by limitation of time and his rights—real or imagined—have been extinguished.
Otunba Remi Adeoye, the Solicitor to Engr. Olufemi Fasehun said that he already had the instructions of his client to commence an action against the policemen at Alagbon for assisting and encouraging land grabbers to enter into his land at No. 10, Kudirat Abiola way, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos.
