Osogbo Grammar School Alumni Association Home and Abroad has decried the forcible taking over of its school land and removal of the building roofs of the girls’ hostel and the illegal use of the police to harass the alumni members by one Lekan Salami who is laying claim to the ownership of the entire Osogbo Grammar School land as a result of an ambush judgement he has been branding about.
The Alumni Association in a paper personally signed by its Global President Otunba David Tola Winjobi (PhD) decried the attitude of the government of Nurudeen Jackson Adeleke in its tardiness and disinterestedness in the case suggesting speculation that some people in government must have been part of the deal.
Dr Winjobi explained in his paper that, “We have written to the government including the Executive Governor of Osun State, the Speaker House of Assembly, the Ministry of Education and to the Secretary to the State Government on this issue. They have not been responsive. The conundrum hard to crack is how our own very alumnus is a party to the ambush judgement ceding our land to some individuals, and how the silence of our another alumnus in the power of authority is deafening like a drop of a needle in a grave yard”.
Otunba Winjobi expatiated further that the encroachment into the OGS school land started as mere farming activities by some peasant farmers few years ago but in 2018 the alumni noticed the surreptitious encroachment in which some individuals were mapping out the land for commercial purposes. When they raised alarm, the speculators retreated but not long they came back. So they had to go to court on three prayers the caveat emptor on school land.
The Global President explained to the joint meeting of the NEC, Board of Governors and Elders’ Consultative Forum of the school that the school land encroachment had exhibited a new dimension to the extent that the land speculators were first erecting beacons and pillars close to the school laboratory block, and then later laying the foundations of their illegal buildings very close to old principal’s lodge.
Adding that the most astounding was the fact that a couple of days earlier stationing some bulldozers around, the usurpers were brazenly removing the roofs of the former girls’ hostel. The next step would have been for them to begin to pull down all the structures in the school premises including the school library, classrooms, and the administrative blocks. "The intervention of the old students prevented further destruction as they had reported to the police at Dada Estate. However, the illegal interloper and his agents secured another police backing from the Area Command to stop both the old students and the police officers from Dada Estate from preventing the illegal removal of the roofs of the girls’ hostel". They were poised to start bulldozing the entire land and the buildings thereof as the next step.
When asked what was the next step The alumni was taking, the Leader of the Alumni informed the meeting that the alumni association was "back to court already though not waving off a political solution to the matter as they had invited eminent and illustrious alumni to strategise on solutions to this anachronistic phenomenon of land grabbing in our school".
Among eminent personalities that graced the stakeholders meeting were the Convener, Elders Consultative forum Elder Tunde Durotoye, Mr Jimoh Alabi, the pioneer President of the alumni Prof Ologunde, High Chief Gbadebo Adeyemo, Senior Citizen Johnson Koledowo, Chair Board of Governor Engineer Felix Ayoola represented by Mrs Folashade Ogunlade and a host of others. They all spoke with one voice wondering why the land speculators were not encroaching on land at St Charles’ Grammar School, Akinorun Grammar School, Okuku Grammar School, Timi Agbale Grammar School etc which are younger than OGS.
While concluding, Dr Winjobi called out Kabiyesi Ataoja for his taciturn in the matter also reminding him that Osogbo Grammar School was established by "Kabiyesi's forebear, and it is his duty to protect the interest of the first school in Osun Division rather than allowing the plundering of over 56.32 acres of land". Likewise he called on the retired justices from Osogbo, Egbe Alatunse of All Saints Church, Osogbo Progressive union and Osogbo Action Council to speak out against this evil and claim back the land in the interest of Osogbo indigenes. Adding Dr Winjobi said “it is disheartening and ludicrous that a government could be testifying against itself, and there should be a panel to review the circumstances surrounding such a clandestine judgement while those found culpable should be brought to book.
He handed down a note of warning to the loquacious and garrulous black legs among the alumni who are feeding these undesirable elements information about association’s strategy to desist from this act. “Backbiting and backstabbing is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Let us know that “…as we can deceive and fool one another, we cannot do so with history but let us only hope that history will not judge them too harshly” (Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia Shall be Free). In unity we can avail much
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