Adewale Saheed Babalola, a senior officer of the Ogun State Land Administration and Revenue Management System (OLARMS), has failed to deliver two certificates of occupancy (CofOs) for which he collected N4 million from Babajide Balogun, an Ogun resident.

Created in 2021, OLARMS is an agency set up to democratise land administration, ratification and document processing in Ogun.

As a staff member, Babalola was a field officer deployed by the agency to Igbusi in the Ifo Local Government Area to interact with and assist interested community residents in filling out forms and making payments for CofOs.

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“He was posted to our community to make the land document application easy for us instead of travelling to Abeokuta. This was done to reduce our stress and save resources,” Balogun told FIJ.

“I then approached him to help me in securing a CofO for my sister’s property at Ayede, a community in Ifo LGA. He assured me that he could do it. His affirmative response prompted me to ask him to help process another such document for a personal property I also have at Ayede.

“I believed I was dealing directly with the government because he was interacting with us with the knowledge of the agency and I had no cause to doubt. He had helped some residents to procure their land documents before.”

The transaction was initiated in April 2024 and the government official promised that the documents would be processed and ready in August of the same year.

“After the payment was made, he came up with an excuse that I needed to pay a fee he tagged ‘BPMS fee’ [Billing Payments Management System].”

After the BPMS fee was paid, Babalola shifted the delivery date to September but did not specify a particular day.

On June 10, he told Balogun that he was awaiting the final analysis from the BPMS before giving him feedback on the entire process.

“I’m just waiting for the final analysis from BPMS on Ayede property. Hence the delay of communicating with you since all this while (sic),” Babalola wrote to Balogun on WhatsApp.

“The BPMS issued N678,950 for the CofO of the property at 5 Ori Oke Irapada, Ayede Bus Stop, Ayede, Ifo, Ogun State for Mrs Balogun-Famakinwa, Oluwatoyin as the applicant. Also, the survey plan has been increased to N20,000.

“Kindly inform the applicant as soon as possible. The application process has gotten to 80% completion. Don’t hesitate to ask me any unclear questions.”

The two parties continued to communicate to get the documents processed and delivered. Balogun told FIJ that he did not pay the money at once as the application was in stages. Once Babalola said he had completed a stage for which money had been paid, he would tell Balogun how much was required for the next stage and he would pay accordingly.

On August 23, he messaged the resident to pay another amount so that he could do the “needful”.

“I’m leaving the office soon. Are you still sending a part-payment so that I will do the needful on it before I leave now. Kindly let me know now. Today is Friday. I would like to beat the traffic,” he said.

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The period that Babalola was expected to deliver the documents elapsed without any results for the applicants. At some point, Babalola said the documents would be ready in February. He kept telling Balogun that the documents would soon be ready.

FIJ learnt that he eventually stopped answering calls or responding to messages from Balogun.

On June 24, FIJ messaged Babalola on WhatsApp. He wrote, “I will get back to you in this regard, sir.”

The man did not provide a response despite promising FIJ one. Phone calls placed across to his line on Saturday rang out and a follow-up WhatsApp message, sent and delivered on the same day, had got no reaction at press time.