Some of those who attended a public hearing on a bill to combat the activities of land grabbers in Lagos State at the state House of Assembly on Wednesday kicked against a provision in the proposed law that specifies a term of six months imprisonment for lawyers or other such professionals who aid land grabbers in the state.
As expected, the bill frowned at some lawyers and police officers who assist land grabbers through phony court judgements and its Section 8 stresses that it is an offence for any legal practitioner or other professionals to aid or abet land grabbers to illegally or violently take over land from an owner. This is in addition to any other necessary disciplinary actions as may be imposed by the Council of Legal Education.
Lawyers at the public hearing said it would pitch the House against those in the legal profession, since the latter was set up by the Nigerian statues.
Some of them, including Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Professor Oluwole Smith and former lawmaker in the state, Babatunde Ogala argued for the removal of the contentious Section 8 stipulating the punishment.
Ogala also pointed out that the punishment for some of the offences is harsher than the punishment for many more heinous crimes, maintaining that trespassing should be seen as a civil rather than a criminal offence.
The bill specifies a term of 21 years imprisonment for any resident found guilty of land-grab while specifying 10 years for owners of land who decide to re-possess their
land through violent means. It also stipulates 10 years imprisonment for the usage of thugs and other such groups to take over landed properties.
The lawyers also reminded the House that under the law regulating the magistrate courts, no punishment is above 14 years imprisonment. They therefore asked the House to reconsider the sections of the bill. The law stresses that anyone convicted of trespassing would be fined N300,000 or a prison term of three months.
For anyone who sells a landed property to many people at the same time as a means of perpetrating fraud, the bill states that such a person, upon conviction, be made to pay an amount not exceeding 100 per cent of the value of the property or liable of imprisonment for five years or both.
Anyone who also fraudulently demands money from a land owner for starting a foundation or roofing his house, upon conviction, would be made to pay a fine of N200,000 or face two months imprisonment or both.
Chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade told the gathering that the House decided to enact the law following a barrage of petitions in recent times.
