The staff and students of the Federal College of Agriculture, Akure Ondo State, on Friday, staged a protest against the encroachment of the land belonging to the institution allegedly by some land grabbers.
The protesters also moved to the Zone 17 office of the Assistant Inspector General of Police, the governor’s office, and the palace of Deji of Akure, Oba Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi, to express their displeasure.
They carried with various inscriptions such as, ‘Don’t send FECA into extinction,’ ‘Rescue FECA from land grabbers,’ ‘ FECA land is not for sale’, ‘Federal Government should come to FECA’s aid,’ ‘Allow FECA to breathe,’ among others.
Speaking during the protest, the chairman of the Academic Staff Union of the College, Mr Kayode Sule, said the activities of the land grabbers were negatively affecting the training of students of the college.
According to him, there was a need to check the activities of the land grabbers to prevent the Federal Government-owned agricultural institution, from going into extinction.
He said, “What is going on is that we have had this problem of land grabbers coming from time to time to disturb us in the college.
“As we are speaking now, they are right inside the college, bulldozing lands, destroying economic trees, destroying those things that we use in the training of our students, all the economic trees and crops being bulldozed by land grabbers even as we speak now.
“Why we are coming out to protest again is to tell the whole world, to tell the government, every concerned citizen and stakeholders in the country that enough is enough that an end must be put to these incessant harassments by land grabbers.”
Sule confirmed that there were several cases in court with several groups of land grabbers, but the cases were still pending in the court. He asked the land grabbers to wait for the outcome of the court cases before taking action.
