OBEAGU-AWKUNANAW FINGERS EX-COMMISSIONER, EX-BANKER AND BUSINESS IN ITS TRAVAILS AT CENTENARY ...APPEALS TO HOUSE OF REPS TO SAVE ITS COMMUNITY FROM EXTINCTION

In what looks like a strong lending of voice to the long lasting outcry for succour in the Awkunanaw communities, the people of Obeagu-Awkunanaw have called on the Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives to be bold, wide sweeping and deep in its investigation of acrivities of individuals whom they say had masquaraded as investors as they sacked the villagers from their homes, markets, farms and community squares whereas they were merely making huge sums money even as they pretended to be investors.

The Obeagu Community had been a part of the earlier petitioners to the House of Representatives in protest against the seizure of their lands by people they described as landgrabbers and criminal elements.

They therefore deemed it necessary to amend their petition to now include areas they perceived had not been brought to the view of the House Members, including what they described as "deliberate actions of an ex-commissioner, an ex-banker and the managing director of PEIWA, alongside an agency of government "to rob our people and force us into extinction."

The amendment to the petition reads, "we the people of Obeagu Awkunanaw, Enugu South LGA, Enugu State, find it imperative to send this amendment to you in relation and in furtherance of our earlier submission to this august committee pursuant to your letter of invitation for the public hearing dated 5th March, 2024.

"This amendment is intended to re-echo concisely our disgust and revulsion at the siege laid against our community as a result of the conspiracies and plans orchestrated principally by the trio of Dr. Festus Uzor (ex-commissioner), Kingsley Eze (managing director of PEIWA) and Bar. Gozie Okoye (ex-Diamond Bank staff), who, by their acts of omission or commission, have created the mess, and must take responsibility for the logjam or hydra-headed situation afflicting our land."

They argued further, "the attempt to forcefully take over and sell off our ancestral land was hatched sometime in 2009 by the ‘three musketeers’ named above. 

"As earlier stated, sometime in 2009, Dr. Festus Uzor was the Commissioner for Lands, Enugu State during the tenure of Bar. Sullivan Chime while Bar Gozie Okoye was the Branch Manager of Diamond Bank, Enugu and Kingsley Eze of Private Estates Int’l West Africa, (PEIWA), who was hardly known then, apparently dangled this heinous project or what we could regard as ‘operation take over Obeagu land’ to the other two who gladly saw the potentials of the ‘deal’ and keyed into it.

"Thus, the then Commissioner for Lands,

did sign the letter of offer to PEIWA, then Barr Gozie Okoye used his office to secure a Two-Billion-naira loan facility to PEIWA, using our land as security for the loan. Thereafter, hell was let loose, and our community became a battle ground for every land grabber to unleash their selfish pangs against us, and since this conspiracy was hatched and executed, we as a community have known no peace; as we have been continually harassed, victimized, dehumanized, degraded, incarcerated and made to suffer in our previously safe and tranquil community."

The petition further reads, "We pray you to come to our rescue and protect us from the stranglehold of those named persons, who have left nothing to spare in their bid to emasculate and annihilate us to enable them take over our land. 

Like the Amechi-Uwani, the Obeagu leaders implored the HOR to take note of acrivities of some police operatives, namely, SP Chidiebere Ijomah, DCP Olasoji Akinbayo and the Area Commander Metro, ACP Sogbeba Dulphine," who they claimed were being used by the land grabbers to oppress, intimidate and cow the natives and residents, to submit willy-nilly to the illegal acquisition and take-over of their lands.

They revealed the modus operandi of the named police officers thus, "SP Chidiebere Ijiomah who acquired and built his residential house on the disputed land, is usually the first to be contacted, and he gets in touch with his boss, DCP Olasoji Akinbayo,  who, apart from the fifteen police officers permanently stationed on our land, will then send a truck load of police officers with patrol vehicles who will storm our community in a ‘show of force’, or rather a fishing expedition, spreading their dragnet and without any reasonable grounds, arresting any of us found around usually to be handed over to the Area Commander, Metro, ACP Sogbeba Dulphine, who will quickly frame up any charge and arraign them on a charge of Promoting Communal War for which they will be remanded."

According to them, "it will now take weeks and months before bail could be secured for such unlucky ones."

They also fingered a special police team named "Hawk Squad" of the Enugu State Police Command, which they alleged were also used at some point to arrest many of the people, who were also kept in police custody, without trial. 

They stated that "not less than ten of our indigenes were thus incarcerated and remained in police custody for over ten weeks before the police succumbed to pressure and had them released."

They pleaded with the authorities to call to order the "O/C, Hawk Squad, SP Chukwuka Odum, and some other police officers, including the ones mentioned above," for their people to have a respite.

They believed that  "by so doing, all their excesses would have been checked," and the people had a new lease of life.

The community leaders decried what they described as "serious restraint and inconveniences in accessing our homes because of SP Chidiebere Ijiomah who is the Chairman of security at the so called ‘Centenary City’ who hasdecided to barricade our quickest access road to our houses, and he has remained adamant to every entreaty to lift this high-handed decision against us." 

They contended that the aftermath of this action was that it now took the villagers over thirty minutes, instead of about five minutes to get home from a point off the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway. 

They wailed, "We pray that this barricade should be dismantled and the hitherto existing access road be restored to allow us a faster, seamless, and less stressful access to our community."

They also sought in the amendment to the petition  to "bring to your (HOR) notice the spate of destruction of our buildings by some compromised officials of the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTDA). We have every reason to believe that some officials of ECTDA are being instigated or procured by the land grabbers against us, and we have our reasons to hold this view, as we shall show hereunder.