The people of Umuokereke, Umuawafor, and Umuwogu villages in the Isiala Aro Ngwa autonomous community, in the Osisioma Local Government area, have raised alarm over a recent land-grabbing exercise by some purported agents of the Abia state government.
The spokesperson for the three villages of Umuokereke, Umuawafor, and Umuwogu, Mr Apollos Ufomba, said that the villagers were shocked to see strangers accompanied by “Operation Crush” (an Abia State government security operation team) with tapes parading around their land, measuring it without notifying the people.
“When we enquired who they were, they said they’re called Abia Smart City. We told them no, we already have enough developers in our land, and we don’t need more,” Ufomba said.
The spokesperson said that similar attempts were made by some people who claimed to be government agents on the said land as far back as 2009-2012, but they failed, as the court ruled in favour of the community when it approached and took the land speculators acting as government agents to court.
According to Ufomba, the judgment that they got in their favour back then made the then-Governor Theodore Orji vacate the land and return it to the villagers, signalling the exit of government from that land.
“At the end, we went to court and defeated them, and the court granted us victory and gave the land back to us. From that day of the judgement, the government TA state gazetted that the Abia state government’s hands are off the land in obedience to the court judgement. The Okezie Ikpeazu administration did not near that place because they respected the judgment of the court,” Ufomba said.
The spokesperson said that the people of Isiala Aro Ngwa, especially the affected three villages, deserve commendation and not intimidation, as Umuawafor village, one of the three villages affected in the saga, just recently gave a large portion of land free to the Abia state government for the building of the permanent site of the Ogbonnaya Onu Polytechnic.
“We deserve some commendation, not this harshness. It’s to our greatest surprise that we see people coming in the name of the Abia State government to take the remaining portion of land we have for our unborn children and our homestead.
“Our people are not happy; we’re angry, and we’re clamouring that we cannot be strangers in our own state. We should be treated like the people of Abia State. We know that our governor is a development-friendly governor and may not be aware of what’s happening.
“We already have enough developers in our land, like. We’ve sold to them. The government of Abia State, or whoever is coming in their name, should allow these people to develop the lands they’ve acquired.”
Barr. Obioha Charles Edward, a lawyer to some of the landowners who purchased land from the community, said that his clients, who are not based in Nigeria, recently learnt that some armed policemen and some unknown persons who have nothing to do with the land entered there with surveyors to begin to demarcate the land into plots.
“When our clients questioned them, they said that they were there on the instructions of the Governor of Abia State, who had given the land to them. We made efforts to reach the governor and failed.
“We equally made efforts to reach the Speaker of the House of Assembly through the member representing Osisioma North State Constituency, but all failed.
“Just recently, rumour had it that the governor of Abia State had acquired the land. And our clients are saying that even if the governor had acquired the land, they’ve not been notified.
“Under section 38 of the Land Use Act, the governor has the right to acquire land for the overall public interest, but that law requires that some legal procedures and processes must be followed, and one such procedure is to notify the people and then give them compensation.
“In this case, nobody notified them, contacted them, or paid anything to them. Each time we see people claiming to be government surveyors with armed policemen threatening our clients and their workers.
“We want to notify the whole world of what is happening here. We’re also trying to use this medium to notify the governor of what is happening because we doubt if he’s aware of what these people are doing with his name.”
He said that it is unfortunate some of his clients, like Mr Cyril Nwachukwu and Nkechi Nwachukwu, who are indigenous people of Osisioma, thought it wise to acquire land in their own LGA to help develop it, only for them to be facing this kind of intimidation done in the name of the government.
