Recently, the Elegushi Royal family were engulfed in a controversy regarding the Otedo Gbame communal clash, where many lives and properties were destroyed. Otedo Gbame is a shanty area in the community, and the inhabitants of the community fought and destroyed many valuables there, until the police were called in to intervene in the clash. Interest in the situation was spurned the more when the Elegushi Royal family were mentioned as participants in the crisis, and so in a telephone conversation, the Elegushi family cleared themselves by stating the real situation and the current status of the whole clash.

SOCIETY REPORTERS NG gathered that the Elegushi Royal family has the legal possession to the land in a court ruling that they obtained from both Magistrate and Lagos State High Court in October and November 2016 respectively. They also have a C of O as proof of their ownership of the land, and have even been fined by the government for not taking possession of the land earlier.

The Elelgushi Royal family clearly states that neither their family nor the Lagos State Government has anything to do with the burning of the shanties, since they are the legal owners of the land and that even some of the current occupiers of the land can testify to. Though some inhabitants of Otdeo Gbame had filed a suit at the Federal High Court, the case was thrown out.

The Elegushi Royal family stopped the occupiers of Otedo Gbame from building shanties again and took possession of the land because of the health risk involved, and secondly because the area had become a security threat as robbers, kidnappers and various hoodlums have made that area their hideout.

The Elegushi Royal family are the owners of the land and not the government so there is no way the government would have had anything to do with the fight for the land, and besides, the Elegushi Royal family are law abiding citizens, and would rather address any issues concerning the land in the court of law than engage in violent activities which would cause death and destruction of properties. They had to take possession of the land when the internal fights between the inhabitants of the shanty became too much, and they are firm in their decision that shanty structures would not spring up in the area again.

The Elegushi Royal family states that they had to make this public statement to clarify that they are the legal owners of the land in question, with documents to prove it. As some of the previous inhabitants of the shanty who are conversant with the history of how they came to reside there can testify that they were allowed to stay there temporarily. And they also want to reiterate that the Elegushi Royal family had nothing to do with the unfortunate incident that claimed lives and destroyed properties.

The Elegushi Royal family also refers us to the New Teleghraph Newspaper report which showed the health hazard of Otedo Gbame and pointed out the fact that many innocent children who were not immunized died because of the deplorable condition of Otedo Gbame. So their intention is to ensure that Otedo Gbame is habitable and secure with the proper infrastructure for the citizens to live in, in line with the Governor’s vision of making Lagos State a city of the future…

We will update you with more details soon, once we lay our hands on more information.