Ex-minister speaks on allegations of land grabbing by Enugu community

A former minister of power, Barth Nnaji, has spoken on the allegations of land grabbing against him by Nkomoro Community in Enugu State.

The allegations

Last Friday, Nkomoro, a community in Enugu East Council Area of the state, alleged that Mr Nnaji, a professor, had forcefully taken over their ancestral land.

Nkomoro is located near Onugba Nike Community in the same council area.

Members of the Nkomoro Community, which migrated from Ezza in Ebonyi State, claimed the former minister visited the community with armed security personnel and started pulling down their houses and levelling their farmlands.

They claimed that they had a land dispute with the Onuogba Community, which then sold the land to Titus Alinta.

The matter, according to them, was still pending in unnamed courts when Mr Nnaji began demolishing the property.

Ex-Minister speaks

But reacting during a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Nnaji refuted the allegations.

Speaking through his lawyer, Benjamin Nwobodo, the former minister said the claim by the Nkomoro Community that they owned the parcel of land was incorrect.

He said the Nkomoro people are tenants to the Onuogba Nike Community, the original owners of the land.

Mr Nnaji explained that, in 2005, he bought the parcel of land from Mr Alinta who had purchased the land from Onuogba Community in I977.

The former minister said he acquired the land to build a manufacturing industry and power project.

He recalled Mr Alinta, now late, had faced resistance from the people of the Nkomoro Community when he began farming on the land, which was a virgin land.

The former minister narrated how Mr Alinta, instituted a suit against the Nkomoro Community and won at the Enugu State High Court in 2004 and a subsequent appeal at the Court of Appeal in Enugu the following year.

Another resistance

Mr Nnaji said when he entered the land to “exercise act of ownership,” Nkomoro Community appealed against the Court of Appeal judgement and asked for a stay of its execution

“The court looked at it and saw that there was no merit in their appeal for a stay of execution and the court dismissed the appeal (in 2011),” he said.

The former minister said the community again appealed the judgement “to delay my enjoyment of the property.”

Mr Nnaji argued that the appeal by the community, which they allegedly abandoned, did not get any order staying the execution of the previous court judgements.

The former minister claimed that the community later began to sell parts of the land to strangers.

He said he appealed to the community to stop the illegal sale. but they ignored the appeal.

Mr Nnaji said he offered to pay N1 million each to those who illegally purchased parts of the land from the Nkomoro people, but they declined, which prompted him to move into the land to take possession of it.

“The action (taking over the land and demolishing structures in the area) is not illegal because it is in compliance with the court ruling,” he stated.

He added that the parcel of land being contested by the Nkomoro Community was not part of the land which the Onuogba Community gave to them to settle in.

Onuogba Community backs ex-minister

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Ubochi, a representative of the Onuogba Nike Community which earlier sold the land to Mr Alinta, said Mr Nnaji lawfully purchased the land from Mr Alinta.

Speaking at the press conference, Mr Ubochi, the president-general of the community, said that in the olden days, the community invited the Nkomoro people from Ebonyi State to help wage war against some neighbouring communities who were encroaching on their lands.

The community leader said the war subsequently failed to hold, but Nkomoro people settled in a land which was given to them for farming activities on the condition of paying rent annually to the Onuogba Nike Community.

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He said they allegedly failed and began bringing in their relatives from Ebonyi State and later started laying claims to surrounding lands, including Ogbanu and Ndume.

Mr Ubochi said the community consequently sued the Nkomoro people in various courts and obtained judgements against them.

“So, the land that Prof. Barth Nnaji bought is in Ndume and was never part of the place we gave to Nkomoro people to settle in for farming activities,” he said.

“And again, there was no building there when our people sold it to Alinta. He was cultivating citrus and pineapple there in the 1980s.”