Ekiti Assembly sets five-year jail for land grabbers

The Ekiti State House of Assembly has passed a law stipulating a five-year jail term for land grabbers as part of efforts to encourage investment in the state.

This was disclosed at the weekend by the Speaker of the Assembly, Adeoye Aribasoye, during a chat with journalists in Ado Ekiti.

 “Recently, the House of Assembly passed a law, the Property Protection Law, otherwise known as anti-grabbing law.

 “What is novel about the new law is that every family land must have a designated account where the prospective buyers pay,” the Speaker said.

He said the law, which is an amendment to an earlier one, “has made the penalty stiffer. It was two years jail term before, but now, if you violate any section of the law, it is five years imprisonment and also payment of 10 per cent of the total value of the land.

“In addition, the person you have duped has the right to also engage you in civil litigation to recover the full payment of his money. That is exactly what we have done in the law.

“It is to arrest the menace of some of the fraudulent family land owners and some who call themselves ‘omo onile’ (land owners) in Ekiti State. Because we know that there cannot be investment if we still have this menace in our land,” the Speaker said.

He said the law would “ensure that people enjoy their hard-earned money so that they are not defrauded in any form.”

Aribasoye disclosed that the Assembly was also in moves to regulate the activities of the estate agents in Ekiti State.

He said, “What we are proposing is that anybody who is not registered in Ekiti State cannot operate as an estate agent.

“We are proposing that you cannot operate as a surveyor without being a licensed surveyor in Ekiti State. You have to be a licensed estate valuer before you can work in Ekiti State. These are the ways we can arrest this social menace and activities of fraudsters in our state.”

The Director General, Ekiti State Bureau of Housing and Mortgage Development, Dr Gboyega Oloniyo, had said recently disclosed that the state government had begun moves to check the trend of outrageous house rents in the state by regulating the real estate sector in the state.

Oloniyo, who spoke during a meeting of government representatives with the real estate players under the aegis of Estate Rent and Commission Agents of Nigeria, Ekiti State chapter, said the state government would soon make laws and regulations to check the arbitrarily high rents in the state to make life easy for residents.

He said, “The governor is interested in making sure that in the real sector, we should moderate and have regulations that will make life easy for the citizenry of Ekiti State. The governor wants to ensure that houses are not only available but they are also accessible and affordable for the people.”

Oloniyo, who vowed that bad eggs in the real estate sector would be flushed out, said, “By the time the laws and regulations are in place, they will solve the issue of landlords raising their house rents arbitrarily. The laws that will be put in place soon will right the wrongs. The laws are coming”.

He also disclosed that work would soon begin on the houses that the Federal Government, through the Federal Housing Authority and the Federal Ministry of Housing, wants to provide for Ekiti State, saying that would address the real estate players’ demand for more houses.

In his remarks, the ERCAN Chairman in Ekiti State, Prince Olabode Ayeoba, noted that the state government’s collaboration would go a long way to address the issues in the sector.

Ayeoba advised the government “to consider coming up with low-cost housing units to serve accommodation needs and as well compel landlords to bring down the high rents.”