House Wades Into Obeagu Town Union Crisis

Chairman of the Obeagu Town Union Litigation Committee of Obeagu Awkunanaw Local Government of Enugu State, Chiene Chiene, has expressed confidence that the community will get justice in the case of alleged police harassment and land grabbing in a petition presented to the House of Representatives.

The community had petitioned the parliament over allegations of land grabbing and police harassment by some certain interests, which had led to the destruction of property as well as the loss of lives.

When the House Committee on Public Petitions entertained the matter, the Chairman, Mike Etaba, struck out the case of land grabbing, saying it was before a court of competent jurisdiction.

He however assured that the issue of intimidation and harassment by the police would be followed up to the end.

According to the Chairman of Obeagu Litigation Committee, Chiene Chiene, there was a siege laid against the community at large as a result of the conspiracies and plans orchestrated principally by the trio of Dr. Festus Uzor, Kingsley Eze and Gozie Okoye to forcefully take over their land.

“As earlier stated, sometime in 2009, Dr. Festus Uzor was the Commissioner for Lands, Enugu State during the tenure of Governor Sullivan Chime, Barr Gozie Okoye was the Branch Manager of Diamond Bank, Enugu with Kingsley Eze of Private Estates Int’l West Africa, (PEIWA) who was hardly known then.

“Thus, Dr. Festus Uzor used his office as the Commissioner for Lands, and signed the letter of offer to PEIWA, then Barrr Gozie Okoye used his office to secure a Two-Billion-naira loan facility secured with our land, and thereafter hell was let loose, and our community became a battle ground for every land grabber to unleash their selfish pangs against us. It is needless to say that since this conspiracy was hatched and purportedly executed, we as a community have known no peace; as we have been continually victimized, dehumanized, degraded, incarcerated and made to suffer helplessly.

“We pray you to come to our rescue and protect us from the stranglehold of those named persons, particularly, Kingsley Eze of PEIWA, who had left nothing to spare in their bid to emasculate and annihilate us to enable them take over our land. We must not also fail to report the activities and oppressive conducts of SP Chidiebere Ijomah, DCP Olasoji Akinbayo and the Area Commander Metro, ACP Sogbeba Dulphine, who are being used by the land grabbers to oppress, intimidate and cow us to submit willy-nilly to the illegal acquisition and take-over of our ancestral land.”

The community prayed the House to stop the menace of the alleged land grabbers and save the community from the invasion and forceful takeover of their ancestral land.

“We are convinced you have the capacity to draw the attention of the Enugu State Government to the excesses of the officials of ECTDA who are being used by the land grabbers to forcefully dispossess us of our ancestral land. The Enugu State Government must bring an end to the unwholesome activities of these land grabbers in order to pave way for peaceful development of the state.

“We have it on good authority that because the fraudulent loan as granted by Gozie Okoye and his cohorts to PEIWA, secured with our land, which loan has obviously been mismanaged, the AMCON may get involved, which implies that we may permanently lose our land if nothing is done now. We implore you therefore to invite the NDIC to investigate the circumstances which led to the said loan and the use of our land as security without our knowledge or consent”.

“Lastly, we also pray you to direct the police high command to apply appropriate sanctions against the above named officers who have clearly abused their offices in their pursuit of their selfish interest or personal aggrandizement,” the community requested.

Oduyemi Odumade, Edited By Grace Namiji