Court Summons Church Over Encroachment of Asade Family Land

Funke Olaode

A Lagos State High Court in Ikeja has ordered the Incorporated Trustees of the Victorious Army Ministries International to appear before it, to answer a land dispute case involving Asade Royal Family of Ogba, Lagos.

Justice Raliat Adebiyi made this order following a motion exparte brought pursuant to Order 9, Rule 5 of the High Court Civil Procedure Rules 2019 by Prince Oyewole Asade and Prince Olabisi Asade.

The Asade Royal family had filed for an application seeking the leave of court to serve a writ of summon and all other originating processes on the church by substituted means by posting at their Church premises having failed to accept service.

In the writ of summon, the Asade Royal family is seeking a declaration that they are the owners of all the pieces or parcels of land located and situated at Plot 22, Acme Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos State.

A declaration that the Asade family are entitled to the statutory Right of Occupancy in respect of all that piece or parcel of land located and situated at Plot 22, Acme Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos State.

Also, the Asade Family as the Claimants are seeking an order of Perpetual Injunction to restrain the church, their servants, agents, privies, assigns, representatives and whosoever derived title from them from trespassing or further trespass on the disputed land.

And an order for possession of all that piece or parcel of land known, located and situated at Plot 22, Acme Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos State.

Asade Royal family in their statement of claims relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in suit No SC 129/1984 wherein Justice Andrews Obaseki affirmed that Agidingbi village and all the farmlands surrounding it lie within Asade’s Ogba land.

The Asade Royal family in their Statement of Claim averred that there is no record of any sale, assignment, transfer, or lease of the said land from their record to the Church and they didn’t know how the church, the Incorporated Trustees of Victorious Army Ministries International, got into their land.

The lawyer to the family Otunba Remi Adeoye also noted that despite the service of the originating processes, the church didn’t file their defence to the claim within the time allowed by the rules of the court.

According to the lawyer, the church had deliberately failed and refused to file any process in Court with the intention of delaying the case in Court.