The villagers ,who claimed to be predominantly into fishing ,farming and hunting ,alleged that armed soldiers, who are stationed in some parts of the village , have denied them access to their rivers and farmlands .
The Otun Baale of the Iraye Oke village ,Chief Kazeem Anwoju ,while speaking on behalf of the villagers also stated that some of the villagers have been ordered by the soldiers to vacate their homes and that they were coming to demolish their houses
Chief Anwoju said ” Since September last year ( 2022 ) ,we have been seeing armed soldiers in our village but things took a worse turn about three weeks ago ,when they began to harass ,arrest and torture members of our village .”
” Our three major occupations are farming ,hunting and fishing but our sources of livelihood are threatened now .Our people cannot go to their farms and the rivers “
The Iraye. Oke chief added that ” Those ,who dared to go there were harassed , arrested and taken to the Army barracks to be tortured .Many of the youths have fled from the village over the fear of being attacked by the soldiers . “
Chief Anwoju also added that ” Sometimes in 1970 ,the military got some land from the Epe people ,where they built a barrack but in 1975 ,they left Epe town and never returned until 2022 .”
” When the came in 2022 ,the Lagos State University had already taken over their former barrack .The place has been converted to the Epe campus of LASU . “
He therefore called on the Federal Government of Nigeria ,the Lagos State Government and the Nigerian Army to come to the aid of thousands of residents of Iraye Oke ,who are about to be displaced by the military men .
” The worst thing is that we are not even getting any response from anybody ..We have written to the Lagos State Government ,the Nigerian Army but we are yet to get any response from them till now .”
One of the victims, tortured by the military men ,Gbenga Ibraheem told Nigerian Tribune that ” Sometimes, September, last year ,I was supervising some contractors, doing road demarcation ,when about ten of us were arrested .”
” I first noticed some security men from the LASU Campus and suddenly I saw some soldiers . Because I had not committed any offence ,I waited to hear from them .”
Ibraheem added that ” Instead of explaining anything to us they started beating us and gave us different punishment styles . We were made to do frog jump after sleeping on the bare ground for more than thirty minutes .”
” Later they took us to LASU campus but the head of the security unit there said that they should not detain us there and they took us to their barracks .”
The victim also said ” At the barracks again ,we started another round of torture .We were made to sleep on hot granites with our eyes facing the sun for more than thirty minutes .”
” It took the intervention of one of the elders of our village before we were released in the evening . For three weeks ,I could not step out of my house .I had to employ a nurse ,who came to treat me .”
