By Dada Ahmed
A community leader in Afon, headquarters of Asa Local Government Area of Kwara state, Alhaji Mahmud Babatunde Baako, has raised alarm over what he described as a serious encroachment into the land belonging to Gss Afon.
He said if not checked, it posed a great threat to further development of physical infrastructure for the school and for other legitimate purposes in future.
Baako stated this while speaking from Afon in a telephone interview with the correspondent of The Reporters, an online publication on Saturday.
He said the said land covered over 800 metres, adding that it was acquired in 1976 by the regime of the late Maj.-Gen. George Agbazika Innih, the then Military Governor of Kwara state for the establishment of the school.
Baako, who described Gss Afon as the first of its kind, then, in the local government area, added that the Innih government paid compensation for acquiring the land.
“Day in day out, we begin to see some buildings spring up on the land and we made effort to find out those behind this illegal activity, we are made to understand that they are untouchable elements in the society.
” The encroachment into the land belonging to Gss Afon is against the law of our land. I have written many letters to the appropriate authorities to stop the negative development but all to no avail.
“I am calling on the Kwara state government to come to our aid by stopping this ugly development, because it is capable of stopping further development for the school.
Baako, a member of the state House of Assembly in the second republic, said that feelers from Dr Yahaya Oloriegbe,representing Kwara Central Senatorial district of the state in the Senate,showed that a Federal College of Education would soon be established in Asa Local Government Area.
He said that part of the said land was being targeted as possible site for the proposed institution.
“Our fear now is that, if the state government does not take the bull by the horn to stop the encroachment, there may not be land for the siting of the proposed educational institution,” he said.