Staff and students of the Federal College of Agriculture, Akure (FECA) have taken to the streets in Akure, the Ondo State capital, to protest against the encroachment of the land belonging to the institution by land grabbers.
The massive protest, which started at the gate of the institution on Friday morning, took the protesters to the zone 17 office of the AIG,
Governor’s Office and the palace of the Deji and Paramount of Akure, Oba Aladetoyinbo Ogunlade Aladelusi, Odundun II.
The protesters were armed 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.
Addressing journalists during the protest, Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of the College (ASUU) of the institution, Mr Kayode Sule, said that the activities of the land grabbers were affecting the training of students of the college.
While describing the activities of land grabbers as “illegal and barbaric,” Sule appealed to the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, intervene and stop the activities of encroachers.
Sule 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, economic crops being bulldozed by land grabbers even as we speak now.
“What we are coming out to protest again is to tell the whole world, to tell 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.
“And some people in this community believe that this land is for grabs and that it must be sold off and that this college must not exist. ”
While revealing that there were several cases in court with several groups of land grabbers, Sule accused a particular man that came with security and started destroying the fences of the institution with the help of security men and things on Thursday.
He, however, urged Akure sons and daughters, the government, FG, Ondo State Government to help the college from going into extinction by land grabbers.”
