The tranquil town of Iyin-Ekiti in Ekiti State was thrown into a state of unrest as landowners from the Nyikiti area staged a peaceful but passionate protest over the alleged forceful acquisition of their remaining ancestral lands. This protest follows the establishment of the Federal University of Technology and Environmental Sciences, which they claim has already taken 230 hectares of their land.
Clad in black attire and singing songs of solidarity, the aggrieved landowners wielded placards with inscriptions such as “We are now being deprived a people,” “230 hectares is enough,” “Leave our remaining land for our survival,” and “Overhead bridge linking University classroom and Senator Building, what a lie?” Their message was clear: they have given enough, and the government must intervene before it’s too late.
According to the protest leaders, the community initially released 230 hectares for the take-off of the new university albeit, as they alleged, under duress. The land was reportedly secured by a committee on land assets, but the process, they said, lacked transparency and fairness, with landowners given no meaningful compensation or relocation options.
The twist in the tale came when the Oluyin of Iyin-Ekiti, His Royal Majesty, and the Oluyin Council, allegedly joined forces with Senator Opeyemi Bamidele to acquire an additional 10 hectares of land adjacent to the initial university site. The stated purpose: to use the land as “seed money” for the university development. This, the landowners say, is unacceptable.
“The people you see here today are angry, they are grieving,” one protester told The Nigeria Education News. “The same people who gave 230 hectares are the ones being asked to surrender their last piece of land. That 10 hectares is the only land left for us to farm, to build, to survive. If we lose it, we become nothing but beggars in our land.”
Many of the residents are now coining a new term to describe their plight: “IDPP” Internally Displaced and Displeased People. Unlike IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) who are forced out due to war or disaster, these residents say they are being pushed out by policy and power, while remaining within the borders of their own community.
One visibly emotional landowner said, “We’re not against development. We welcomed the university with open arms, but now they want to take everything. What do they want us to eat? Where do they want us to go? Are we not humans too?”
In earlier negotiations, the landowners claimed they were not adequately consulted. Instead, they allege that the decision-making process was hijacked by traditional and political leaders, who prioritized government interest and prestige over the people’s survival and welfare.
Some insiders within the community revealed that the original understanding was that the 230 hectares donated would be enough for the institution’s infrastructure. The new demand for more land, especially from the side that houses the community’s last farmland, feels like betrayal.
“This is not what they promised us,” said another landowner. “We heard about ‘overhead bridges’ and ‘Senator buildings.’ These things only exist on paper. In reality, the community is becoming poorer, not richer.”
Governor Biodun Oyebanji has been urged by protesters to visit Iyin Ekiti and see the conditions of the affected landowners for himself. They appealed to his known record of empathy and grassroots leadership, insisting that the state government must act before tension escalates into a full-blown crisis.
The federal government has also been called upon to intervene and ensure fair compensation, or at the very least, an end to what the protesters described as “greedy overreach.” Their plea was as emotional as it was urgent: “Save our souls before we become strangers in our land.”
Local NGOs and civil rights advocates have begun taking interest in the case, with some planning to petition the National Human Rights Commission and the National Assembly’s Committee on Land Use and Compensation. A legal challenge may also be underway if the demands of the landowners continue to be ignored.
At the heart of the matter lies a classic Nigerian paradox development without human dignity. The people of Iyin-Ekiti say they want the university to thrive but not at the cost of their own extinction. As one protester simply put it, “We gave our land for education. Don’t take our lives in return.”
