Hoodlums lay siege on OAU community, attack VC, others.

Some hoodlums have on Monday laid siege on some parts of Obafemi Awalowo University community in Ile-ife.

Daily Mail learnt that some land grabbers were bent on taken some parts of the land belonging to the university for personal use.

The land which is located along Mayfair road is about 500 meters away from the university main entrance.

According to the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof Eyitope Ogunmodede, the university has built some hostels on the land since three years ago but has not been able to occupy it in spite of what he called “a terrible short of accommodation for the students” due to the activities of land grabbers.

Upon the tip that some people had taken bulldozer to the land on Monday, the Vice Chancellor, in company of journalists led some top management staff of the university to visit the place.

The convoy came under a heavy attack by suspected hoodlums allegedly hired by the Ife community land grabbers.

The vehicles in the convey were hit with cutlasses, axes and other dangerous weapons before they forced to turn back.

The hoodlums were also shooting sporadically into the air for several minutes in an attempt to chase the management team away.

Speaking to journalists shortly after arriving the university campus, the vice chancellor said, the site is the gazetted land of the university and they are not ready to cede to anybody.

He said “We will try as much as possible to ensure that we maintain peace with the community because the university cannot exit without the community. We will try to reach perfect understanding with the community because in spite of what we have witnessed today, we will continue to do maintain peace.

“We are in a very serious situation as far as OAU land is concerned. This people are bent on grabbing the land at all cost but we are not going to allow that and in trying to do this we will ensure peace and harmony.

“We have reached out to the federal government and they have given us the marching order that they are not interested in ceding an inch of the land to anybody. We are not going to allow some people to occupy gazetted land without approval from the Federal government. If the federal government decides to reverse the gazette, fine but as far as that is still standing it will be very difficult for anybody just cede out the university land.”

Asked whether the university will consider legal action against the land grabbers, the VC said “we are not there yet because we still have open channels of discussion with the leadership of the community. Even when matters get to court they tell you to settle out of court. What we are considering now is how the university and the community will sit down and iron things out.

“When you see the site that we are talking about, you will see the sign “Odudua estate” that is what is written there, and you know what that means. If you have an estate some people must own that estate. We are not attaching this to individual, we are attaching to the community. If you ask me whether it is ife community, I will say some part of ife community.

“The Ooni is well aware of this and he has given us his words that he’s try his best to ensure that sanity prevails and that we all live in peace and we believe that he’s doing that.

“This is an attack, a direct attack on members of the university community. And we take it as that because we all know that we don’t always know everything those who did this do not know the implication of what they are doing and I take it to be that. So after this we will sit down and jaw jaw. Ogunmodede said.