A property owner, Hamid Shiwoku, has appealed to Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, to intervene in a protracted dispute over land allegedly allocated to him by the state government in 2006 but later reassigned to another person.
Shiwoku, in a petition dated August 17, 2026, asked the governor to direct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the alleged reallocation, identify those responsible and restore the property to him.
He said the land, situated at Obasanjo Hilltop Estate, Abeokuta—formerly Southwest Hilltop Estate—is covered by file number LUD/LR/13,950/17 in his name.
According to him, the property had been fenced, gated and secured since its allocation, and he encountered no problem whenever he inspected it during visits to Nigeria until January 2024.
“I went to check the place and discovered that the fence had been broken into, the padlock broken and the gate flung open,” he alleged.
Shiwoku said enquiries within the neighbourhood failed to reveal those behind the alleged intrusion, prompting him to report the matter to the Ogun State Bureau of Lands and Survey.
He alleged that officials of the bureau could not locate his original file, after which the Director-General approved the opening of a temporary file to enable him to continue processing his Certificate of Occupancy.
Shiwoku said he submitted copies of the original allocation document, payment receipts and a government survey identifying the property but alleged that the temporary file became stalled in the charting department under the Surveyor-General’s office.
According to him, the file remained there from September 4, 2024, until April 2025, when he returned to pursue the matter and discovered that another file number had appeared against the property on satellite imagery.
He alleged that subsequent enquiries showed that the second file had been created approximately 15 years after his original allocation.
“At the initial stage, officials of the Land Department, specifically at the office of the Deputy Director, Land Management, claimed they could not trace the encroaching file,” he said.
Shiwoku subsequently petitioned the Director-General of the Bureau of Lands and Survey, copying the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice and the Head of Service.
He said the Attorney-General referred the complaint to the state Task Force on Anti-Land Grabbing and Illegalities, where he made a statement and submitted documents supporting his claim.
However, Shiwoku alleged that officials of the Land Department failed to honour the task force’s invitation.
“By my next visit, the task force office told me officials of the Land Department did not honour their invitation, so they were yet to obtain statements from them,” he said.
He claimed that repeated visits to the task force yielded no appreciable progress.
Shiwoku also alleged that the Attorney-General assured him during a personal meeting that the investigation would be concluded within a week and its report made available to him, but subsequent efforts to obtain an update were unsuccessful.
“I have subsequently sent him numerous WhatsApp messages with no response,” he alleged.
He said he similarly contacted the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Legal Matters, but alleged that calls and messages sent after the official’s initial intervention were unanswered.
According to Shiwoku, the most significant development occurred when the Surveyor-General and Director of Land Management invited him to a meeting and allegedly acknowledged that the property had been wrongly reallocated.
“They admitted an error was committed. They told me the land was wrongly reallocated. Despite their admission, they refused to redress it but rather adopted evasion tactics,” he alleged.
“No external person can have access to land records, not to talk of tinkering with them.”
Shiwoku wants the government to establish how land allocated to him in 2006 could have been assigned to another person and how a new file became associated with the property several years later.
“I am appealing to the governor to redress this matter,” he said. “The records should be properly examined and justice done.”
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