The Ondo State High Court, sitting in Akure, the state capital has ordered the total closure of the state popular automobile market along Akure / Ilesa expressway.
The court held that the State Government did not properly acquire the land before citing the auto-market on it.
The automobile market was one of the gigantic projects celebrated by the former governor, Olusegun Mimiko’s administration.
It was,however, gathered, that the owners of the land, Chief Taye James and one Idowu Olanusi were not compensated over the use of their land for government projects.
The Court ordered its staff to seal up the automobile market owned by the state government following the alleged disobedience of the government to obey the vacation order of the court.
The court’s staffers have now marked the fence of the property.
With the development, the automobile dealers occupying the premises would vacate the land until further notice.
The owners of the land, one Chief James and Onanuga took the government to court for illegally acquiring the land.
The court, in 2014, in a judgment delivered by Justice A.O Adebusoye, ruled that the government should vacate the land. It further ruled that, ” the first claimant is entitled to a statutory right of occupancy over the property.”
According to the counsel of the claimants, Barrister Kehinde Ojo, the government had allegedly not obeyed the court order on the land. This made his clients to approach the court again.
He said, ” We have made several moves to the government to honor the initial agreement but to no avail, hence the reason we went back to the court for enforcement of the judgment.”
One of the owners of the land, Chief James said he would give the government options of giving him back the land as directed by the court or the defendant should give him N100million as compensation.
He noted that the immediate past government of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko agreed to pay them N100million as compensation but the money was not paid until the government left in February this year. He declared that the government should pay the money or vacate the land.
In his reaction, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, Mr. Segun Ajiboye said the government would study the court ruling and take further action on it.
” You can see that the matter has been on before we came in but we will study everything and take necessary action on it. “
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