By Mary Okere, Owerri
Land Grabbers in Nekede, Owerri West LGA, Imo State Received Another round of warnings from an indigenous landlord and civil liberties and rights crusader, Val Ekezie Amadi
Val Ekezie (Frakas Mo’Fire) Amadi has once again, on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, after visiting the Imo State Ministry of Lands & Survey, warned land grabbers in his native Nekede, Owerri West L.G.A of Imo State to stay away from his personal and family ancestral property.
In his statement, he stressed,
“Tricking individuals in a community into giving up their Ancestral land and or purchased plots of land while claiming Eminent Domain Powers (Government take over) that do not exist is the height of gross impunity.
Being a community leader that plays “the Ostrich” or “the possum” while your community burns as people are tricked out of their land is a gross display of purgatory Wisdom.
We must wake up and confront these supposedly outdated land grabbing tactics (formats) as the people are a lot wiser these days.
In the fullness of time, the “DOCTORS” and possessors of Fake Government Allocation Documents would be exposed and they would face the full weight of the law. This time around, our people would no longer suffer for lack of Knowledge”
He issued a stern warning to Dr Collins Anah and his company, Anah Integrated Agro Services from further violations and encroachments on their property in his native Umuezereokam, Nekede. He said he was surprised that after initially bulldozing parts of his family’s property, that that Dr Anah and his crew went in on a second time, prompting his lawsuit against Anah. Anah went in again for a third and fourth time on the 12th and 13th of July 2022, causing much uproar around the village and its environs. Val says he sees that as an intentional Act of connivance to get him to deal away their ancestral possession and would go any length to protect his rights, inheritance and possession.
Val stated that he has no issues with Anah or any estate developers coming into the community genuinely with an aim to developing the area and not under the guise of the “eminent domain” clause that purports a governmental take over of the people’s land. In the “eminent domain” land grabbing tactic, the criminal developers usually get the public to give away their lands to them for cheap, sometimes even for free, convincing them that the government, via eminent domain powers, has cited, in the concerned area, a government project that would serve a general good purpose to the public.
He said the community would much rather welcome the arrival of investors who would build up industries and Hi-Tech companies that would help create jobs and various opportunities for the Youth and general population than investors who just want to build housing Estates.
Val stated that several other estates (‘Ala Ọma’, ‘Reclamation’, ‘Prisons Estate’, etc) around the area saw the so called facilitators and Attorneys convince the people to give up their lands for almost nothing, with promises of quick development and quick economic boost to the local economy. Much of those same areas are yet to be developed and that this new attempt would just be about the ‘same old story’.
He laments that most of the housing estates being built in the area are land grabbing schemes that usually turn into a ponzy and ‘allocation papers’ schemes as the allocation documents for the plots are traded multiple times, exchanging multiple hands, much like the stock market, without the land ever being developed in the nesr future, defeating the purpose (quick development of the area for the people) for which it was acquired in the first place.
Once again, he reminded the people that the government had not taken over their land and to deal with the developers on individual basis since Umuezereokam Nekede only has individual/family and not communal lands. As earlier stated by the Governor of Imo State, Gov. Hope Uzidinma, no lands have been acquired by the State Government in the area. The last Estate acquired by Rochas Okorocha in the area was the “Reclamation Estate” and it has since been cancelled by the Ihedioha and Hope Uzodinma’s administration, with the land reverted to “status quo” (the indigenous owners). Therefore, no “extension”, “adoption” (or whatever fancy words being used in the propagation of the crime) of the so called cancelled “Reclamation” Eatate has taken place and would ever take place.
Val, responding to the news of some of the community leaders (many of whom do not have landed property in the area but are often given lands grabbed by the criminal developers in anticipation of their job as soft landing experts and convincing agents) being bought over by the developers, encouraged the Village heads and community leaders to resist the economic temptation of money and gift teasers brought on by the developers and their cronies and rather focus on maintaining their integrity in the discharge of their duties to the community.