After a series of back and forth, the Deeper Life Bible Church has announced that the ministry is set to take over the expanse of land earmarked for the permanent site of the church-owned Anchor University, which some trespassers took over.
The church’s Chairman of the Land and Building Committee, Pastor Alfred Ogene, announced in a press conference held on Sunday.
Ogene told the media that although the university had, since inception, mapped a well-laid-out plan of its permanent site and had provided the necessary infrastructures, the university is still operating from its temporary campus inside the International Bible Training Centre, Ayobo-Ipaja, Lagos State.
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The building chairman stated that the university planned to build its permanent campus on a more than 40-hectare parcel of land at Maba Town, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in the Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State.
Ogene claimed that the church’s initial plan had been delayed until now because a large part of the land was encroached upon by trespassers.
According to him, the church, as a responsible organisation, chose to employ all legal channels to reclaim the land from these encroachers and instituted a suit at the Ogun State High Court against all those directly or indirectly connected with the encroachment in 2008.
Ogene said the church’s right to the disputed land was affirmed in a landmark ruling by Justice Abiodun Akinyemi on July 15, 2016.
He noted that the judge granted an order of perpetual injunction that restrained the defendants, their agents, servants and/or privies from committing any further acts of trespass on the claimant’s land
“By the ruling of July 15, 2016, all trespassers on the land were ordered by the trial judge ‘to remove forthwith from the claimant’s land any equipment, building materials or structures put thereon.’” He said.
Based on the 2016 judgment, Pastor Ogene said the court, on May 8, 2017, issued a warrant of possession to the church and served a writ of possession on all the structures and fence lines on the encroached portion of the land on January 9, 2018.
“This, in the eye of the law, meant the return of the land to its rightful owner. And the Anchor University Campus Project could have started immediately then,” Ogene added.
However, the Anchor university project was further delayed by another suit filed in February 2018 by representatives of the trespassers and encroachers, seeking to overturn the court’s earlier judgment.
The school project was put on hold for the court to give its ruling on the new suit.
According to Ogene, the court dismissed the suit on September 7, 2018, because it lacked merit and upheld the 2016 ruling, reaffirming the church’s ownership of the disputed land.
Ogene noted that DLBC has since 2018 secured the Certificate of Occupancy on the land and has been discharging its financial obligations to the state government.
He lamented that the trespassers have refused to vacate the land despite the repeated court rulings and have exhausted the church’s patience. “We have exhausted our patience, and there is no time to waste again. So, we have resolved to move men and equipment to the sites to commence work. All structures or objects that their owners have not removed will not be spared,” Ogene declared.
Stella Adeniyi