Date: 2017-02-14

A ninety year old woman, Madam Saadatu Bello Belukor, first daughter of a great warrior, Balogun Alanamu has cried out to Nigerians to wade into the usurpation of her inheritance by unknown persons.

Saadatu who said she went on exile to Onitsha due to challenges of childbearing since her early thirties presented a document purportedly given to her by her late father, Alhaji Bello Belukor, the then Balogun Alanamu of Ilorin, who was said to be a warrior and conquest of the lands under his jurisdiction and which was said to have been handed over to her by the same father as far back as 1977 in a document titled ‘MEMORANDUM OF INDENTURE OF BOND OF BEQUEST OF LANDED PROPERTY TESTIMONIAL COVENANT/PREPOSITION" dated 16th July, 1977 and duly signed by the late father, Alh Bello Belukor, Balogun Alanamu and witnessed by the then officer in charge of documentary office, Baba Oyo.

According to Madam Saadatu when she returned from exile, she was informed by a concerned person, that her father’s land is been taken over by certain unknown persons who had been receiving compensations over the said land and this prompted her visit to the Bureau of Lands and a petition to the Commissioner of Police, Kwara State Command.

The aggrieved woman said that after her discussions seems futile, she raised a petition to the Kwara State Government and the Director General Bureau of Lands in a petition dated 19th October, 2016 through her lawyer, Dr Aliyu Salman, SAN, a prominent legal practitioner in Ilorin.

When visited for further investigations, the Director General, Bureau of Lands told a group of Journalists that visited him that Madam Saadatu Bello Beluko’s claims ae spurious and unfounded adding that how could she be laying claims to a land that has been acquired by local governments, State and even Federal Government since over fifty years ago?

The DG however maintained that the document held to by the complainant is not a valid document and that it only specified a portion of land ceded to her by her late father and that the land in question was not even acquired by government as alleged.

She alleged that a peace meeting was arranged by the bureau of lands with all those who were said to have collected compensations over the said land but none showed up on the agreed date.

However, there was a twist in the matter when our correspondent along with other journalists visited the lawyer to the complainant, Salman Alarape SAN, of Saraa Chambers, who stated that if government had not encroached on the claimed land, the woman will have no reason to be complaining. He however pointed that all other lands supposedly belonging to the woman for which government claimed it had been paying compensations remains disputed until Kwara state government and its agents provide a list of all beneficiaries of the disputed land and evidence that they are entitled to the land being claimed by them.

One of her sons Aderemi who was asked to speak about the matter said that several of the land grabbers assume that her mother had died because of her disappearance since a long time narrating their ordeal in the hands of person who tried to lure him to jeopardize support for her mother based on juicy promises which he turned down.

He narrated a scenario when the old woman was even harassed and assaulted by an official of the Bureau of lands, whom the son suspected has a hand in the sales and appropriation of the disputed lands.

When contacted in a telephone conversation, Olusola Amore, Commissioner of Police, Kwara Command of the Nigerian Police explained "I do not deal with compensation on and take over of lands. If any land is acquired, go to the state government. If any compensation is paid, go to the government. If it is land matter, police do not dabble into land matters. If there is any criminal aspect of it, we look in to that but if it is only land matter; it is the court that will decide the issue."

Madam Saadatu Bello Belukor is however calling on all government agencies from Local Government, State and federal to look into her plight and grant her justice over her inheritance taken over by land grabbers who had been feeding fat on the premise that she is believed to have been dead due to her disappearance since a long time ago.