Alaba Traders Shut Commercial Bank Over Land Encroachment:

Traders of Alaba In­ternational market, Ojo, Lagos yes­terday shut down a new generation bank (names withheld) which alleg­edly encroached into a land said to belong to one of the stakeholders in the market.

The traders who em­barked on a peaceful pro­test in front of the bank, paralyzed its activities for some hours as the traders who displayed placards chanted solidarity songs of protest.

Leading the protest, Chairman of Alaba Amalgamated Traders Association, Mr. Paul Chijioke said the bank re­fused to compensate the owner of the encroached land even after promising to do so more than one year ago.

He noted that instead of the bank to obey the gentleman’s agreement they earlier entered with the owner, a regional head of the bank alleged­ly demanded for a bribe of N20 million before he could convey the ap­proval for payment to the head office.

According to the chair­man, “sometime last year one of our members in the market reported the encroachment of his land by the bank. When the matter was reported to the executives of the mar­ket, we waded into it im­mediately and contacted both parties and after deliberation, the bank ac­cepted that it encroached the land.

“We held another meeting with the man­agement of the bank where the issue of settle­ment to the owner of the land was reached by the management. The bank argued that there was no need of going to court as they were ready to do something. But since they made the promise to settle, nothing has been done.”

The chairman said in order to avoid any clash with the bank, the trad­ers went to Area ‘E’ police command at Festac to re­port the matter. THE AUTHORITY