Bakori Village Head Accused of Land Grabbing

Bakori Village Head, Alhaji Abubakar Ibrahim Bakori, has been accused of grabbing land belonging to a mosque at Shema Quarters in Bakori. 

The village head, who is also a treasurer in one of the local government councils in Katsina State, claimed to have been sold the piece of land by a retired Director of Administration and Finance, DAF, back in 2018. 

Investigations revealed that members of the Shema Quarters Community resisted the attempt to sell the piece of land by the village head. They reported the matter to the district head, Alhaji Garba Tukur Idris, Makaman Katsina. 

The district head was said to have summoned a meeting between the village head and some members of the community. At the meeting, the village head was said to have tendered questionable documents that conferred ownership of the piece of land on him. 

In the end, the district head directed the village head to drop the issue since the land was in the premises of the mosque. 

Some members of the community put a call through to the retired DAF, who denied any knowledge of allocating the piece of land to the village head. 

Investigations show that before a piece of land is allocated to anybody, the land allocation committee has to convene a meeting and approve the allocation. 

Some members of the community, who are employees of the local government confirmed that no such process was followed before the questionable document was written. 

In spite of the directive by the district head to the village head to drop the matter, the village head, bidded his time till the district head was away before he started making moves to sell the piece of land again. 

Today, he sent three different sets of people made up of valuers and buyers to value and sell the piece of land. In all cases, members of the community advised the teams to keep away from the land as it belonged to the mosque. 

In the end, members of the community intimated the local government chairman, Alhaji Ali Maicitta, who assured them that he would not condone illegality. 

Several years ago, an attempt was also made by some corrupt local government staff to sell the piece of land, which was resisted by the community and it was aborted. 

Members of the community are now appealing to the state governor, Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda, to intervene in the matter in the interest of peace and justice.