Residents of Ottassona Estate Oniru have decried being locked in against their will by Oniru Property Management Company.
According to residents, the estate has been locked since the 22nd of june by the company which claims it had a court order to repossess the estate.
Narrating the foundation of the estate, a resident said “This place was developed, as we know it by Intercontinental Bank ( through an SPV called Otassona Gardens Limited. They sold all eight houses, and of course the Otassona Gardens Limited would have bought the ownership from the Oniru Chieftaincy family since they are the sole holders of the global C of O for the entire Oniru.
When Things Took a Turn For the Worst
The resident noted things were normal up until the 22nd of June when their nightmare started.
“On the 22nd of June, my mother-in-law was visiting from Abeokuta. Her train was to arrive by 11, so I didn’t go to pick her up. My wife, Molara, went to pick her up. And then I had a meeting, that’s why I couldn’t go, right? I had a virtual meeting.
“So while I was in the meeting, I got a call from the security guards. And then later on, I heard a commotion and I peeped and I saw that it was like some military base and thugs and all kinds of people.
“So eventually, I came down and I noticed that they had locked up our gate. They had written things on all the walls, possession taken, blah, And then they were asking us to pack our things.
“They were hitting everybody’s door. It was heightened. Asking us to just pack our things and get out immediately.
“They said that there was a court ruling that Oniru Property Management Company should take over this place.
“I said, okay, how come we never heard it? When was this ruling? They said 20-something November last year. How come we never heard? How come we were never invited to court? How come we were never given an eviction notice?
“And in any case, how come nobody has told us what we did wrong to forfeit our homes that we live in? Either as homeowners or tenants, it makes no difference. We’re residents.
“We occupy these homes legally. As we speak, nobody has told us what we did wrong to be subjected to this.
“So since that day, 22nd of June, no car has driven through this gate.”
Efforts to Resolve Case
The residents revealed efforts have been made to resolve the case amicably to no avail.
“We went to meet the Aremo Segun Oniru and he said he has taken over the place.”
“During our meeting, we were asked to keep our phones away. I guess he didn’t want the meeting recorded.
“I don’t know if it’s proper to say, but a financial demand was made. Very substantial.
“So he did some calculation that arrived approximately at 400 million.
“He said he would sell this place for about four billion but if we made a commitment to pay that 400 million (the gate would be opened).
“But then we also found out that the Oniru Chieftaincy family had in 2020, six years ago, written to him and they have what they call a deed of revocation of the power of attorney of that company he ran as their agent.
“Telling him, you are no longer our agent as far back as 2020. And we saw the deed of revocation. We also saw a letter written by the KBSC to Segun.”
Effect of Long Estate Closure
The resident noted the continued estate closure has brought untold hardship to residents of the estate.
“As we speak, it’s bad, very bad. Tayo here has a little baby.
“If there’s an emergency, you can’t go out. If it’s raining, you can’t go out to take a cab or something or whatever it is.
“We have a four month old baby in this estate. Babies have a mind of their own. We had an emergency with that four month old baby about two weeks ago.
“In the middle of the night, the parents, because anybody that had their cars in here were locked in. The parents have a family car that they borrowed. That car has to be parked somewhere else.
“But where they parked the car, you can’t get in after 11 o’clock and an ambulance can’t come into this estate, an ambulance cannot. Fire truck can’t come in, water tanker can’t come in.
“It’s been terrible since 22nd of June. I can’t even go into the details, but the stress is too much.
“Now, my question is why should we be imprisoned?”
Unending Intimidation
Residents are said to have been subjected to several levels of intimidation by Aremo Segun in the weeks after the initial closure of the gate.
“what he did was lock the gate with chains. Disabled our guards from working, literally said they can’t work.
“Put some guards there. That’s number two. Number three, a few days later, he then built a wall, a brick wall.
“And then about a week or so later, Lagos State came to break that wall down. After that, he is almost doing something every week.
“He then removes the signage for this estate in the night, After which, when we replaced the signage, a week later on Monday, this week, he then sends a big tipper truck to drop sand outside our gate, which you saw there.
“So it’s several levels of intimidation, bullying, which is clearly totally unacceptable, but fundamental is the fact that this man has kept us imprisoned in this estate, has abused our fundamental rights.
“He has behaved and threatened us in the most psychologically thundering manner. Absolutely.
“But beyond that, he’s then, because he kept threatening to send a tractor to come and break the estate down. We then see a tractor, but unfortunately nobody was able to take a picture, but we have pictures of everything else in the video.”
Ongoing Court Case
The residents revealed they had an ongoing court case challenging the supposed repossession of the estate.
“We went to court. there’s a substantive case, which is what he claims is called possession, which clearly you don’t even need to be a lawyer (to fault) because how do you get possession when nobody was served?
“Obviously we only found out about it on the 22nd.
“Then there’s the case of you cannot keep us held in. We’re like a crazy ass family. Everybody just gets on, we don’t have anybody managing. That’s how close we all are.
“Like literally, if it happens to one person, one person gets on our estate group, it’s going on. Everybody comes out. So that’s how close we literally are.
“we’ve been living in this estate for over decades, for years, prior to us living in this estate. In fact, MTN used to live, MTN used to rent the whole place, which is why you have that mast thing there.
“They used to rent it for, I think, for their directors, if I remember right.
“In any event, we go to court and we’re asking, based on humanitarian grounds, that look, outside of the substantive case, we need this gate to be open because this has now gone on long enough.
“It’s gone on this long because arguably for me, and I can say this without a shadow of a doubt, there aren’t many people who can swear that their neighbors are above boarding the jet and law-abiding citizens.
“That’s the one thing I can say about the people everybody I live with in this estate.
“So because of that, we’ve been patient. You know, let it go to court. Trust me.
“Did we want to break that chain? Yes, we did, but we didn’t. Right? Now, we go to court and then ask for the gates to be opened. ”
