By Our Correspondent
TENSION is mounting in Awka, the Anambra State capital, as no fewer than 400 land owners at Umuneri village, Isuaniocha in Awka North local government area, have threatened to take violent action to stop officials of the Anambra State Housing Development Corporation from dispossessing them of their duly acquired property.
At a meeting in Awka on Tuesday, the property owners appealed to Governor Chukwuma Soludo to intervene in the matter immediately to avoid breakdown of law and order, stressing that they would not watch while their life savings are forcefully taken away from them.
Their leader, Professor Steve Unachukwu, who read their position paper on the matter, said they heard that the Housing Corporation has concluded plans to invite Governor Soludo to flag off an estate known as Green Valley in the area without taking into consideration, the plight of the owners of the property, many of which had been developed.
He drew the attention of the governor to the imminent threat to peace, adding that most of the affected people used their life savings to acquire and develop the property which are being demolished by the Corporation.
Going down memory lane, Unachukwu said: “The people of Umuneri Village, Isuaniocha engaged the Housing Development Corporation in a dialogue that ended with the village donating 1,000 plots of land to the Corporation on an agreement that the Corporation should build a bridge and road to link Awka with the axis of the land.
“Umuneri Village mapped out the 1,000 plots (54.27 hectares) and parcelled the rest of their land opposite the 1,000 plots and shared the plots to their children to set up their homesteads.
“Some of the beneficiaries of the plots of land shared by the village sold their own plots to members of the public that wanted to purchase same. More than 200 persons purchased plots of land from such indigenes of Umuneri village. Some of the purchasers built structures on their own, some erected perimeter fence on their own, while others were cultivating their lands until about 2018, when the Anambra State Housing Development Corporation entered the entire land of Umuneri Village at Agu Ubili Land and destroyed every structure and economic crop there.
“The Corporation occupied the land since then, using the Army, the Police, Civil Defence and thugs from Awka.
Angered by the development, Umuneri people took out Suit No: A/243/2019: Geoffrey Udeh & Ors vs. Anambra State Housing Development Corporation.
“The Corporation approached the plaintiffs for settlement of the suit out of court, which was achieved and terms of settlement signed by parties and filed in court which was finally made a consent judgment by the court with a survey plan signed by all the Counsel to the parties.
“Surprisingly, since 2020 that the consent judgment was entered, the Housing Corporation has remained on the land of Umuneri people not given to them, using the Army, the Police and other instruments of coercion to maintain their hold on the land.
“For want of an option, the land owners took out another suit against the Corporation in Suit No. A/106/2022: Steve Unachukwu & Ors. vs. Anambra State of Nigeria & 8 Ors which is still pending at High Court No. 1, Awka.
“In spite of this suit, the Corporation continued to sell parcels of the land in dispute and has concluded arrangements to invite His Excellency, Mr. Governor to flag off massive construction of structures on the land in dispute in defiance of all known principles of rule of law and equity.
“We have written a letter to the Commissioner for Lands, Anambra State and dialogued with him; we have written a letter to the Managing Director of the Anambra State Housing Development Corporation and dialogued with him and his team, all in a bid to avoid confrontation, but our efforts yielded no result.
“The government of Anambra State and the Housing Corporation are creations of the law. It becomes deplorable when institutions created by law turn around to act in defiance of the law.
“We want the whole world to hold the Anambra State Housing Development Corporation responsible for any breakdown of law and order, including loss of lives that may happen at the scene of the said land, in the event of further attempts by the Corporation to appropriate the citizens’ lands to itself unlawfully as the owners of that land are prepared to resist such acts with the last drop of their blood.”
Reacting to the threat, the Housing Corporation said the said estate is not in dispute, as adequate compensation was duly paid to the original owners of the land.
The corporation alleged that those threatening government were doing so because they have seen the massive development in the estate.
