By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Scores of angry women from Enugu, Umuinu and Umuopu kindreds of Ifite Umueri community in Anambra East Local Council of Anambra State, on Monday took to the entrance of the new Anambra cargo airport baring their naked bodies to protest alleged encroachment on their ancestral land.

The lands were said to have been earmarked for the construction of the International Cargo and Passenger Airport by agents of the State Government.

The protesters used palm fronds to barricade entry point and made bonfires of used tyres, vowing to occupy the place for the next one month, until the State Government remedied the situation.

Speaking on behalf of the protesters, Mrs Ugo Nwakonuche appealed to the governor to leave Agu n’ato land alone, saying that the ancestral land is reserved for Umueri as farmland and for the children to build their homesteads.

She recalled that in the build-up to Obiano's re-election, he approached Umueri community, reminding them that as neighbours of Aguleri, they should allow him to lay claim to the airport land to substantiate his claim of building a legacy project to shore up his performance profile.

Nwakonuche regretted that Umueri community was also made to believe that a link road was being built, only for the government to start destroying the infrastructure of up to 200.

She added: "If the government fails to heed the clarion call, the women would move into the site and chase the workers out of the project site.

"The governor is waging a war of vengeance."

She wondered what interest the Aguleri-born governor has to annex the land on the pretext of building an airport.

The protesters further called the governor unprintable names even while displaying placards with inscriptions, “We cannot be refugees in our own land,” “Willie Obiano, leave our land alone,” “No official Environmental Impact/Health and Social Assessment, no Airport,” “No MOU, no Airport,” “Land grabbers should leave Umueri out,” and “No release of the corresponding size of encroached Parcels B in Parcel A, no Airport", among others.

On his part, the Chairman of the Joint Meeting of the three kindreds that own the controversial airport project land, Chief Innocent Ndumanya, told journalists that the protesters from the kindreds of Enuagu of Mgbede village, Umuinu of Ogbu village and Umuopu of Umuopu village, all in Ifite Umueri, that own the land came out to protest because the state government abandoned the original 729.606 hectares of land originally donated to the state government and allegedly took extra 1901 hectares of land for not just the airport project but also for sharing as party patronage and goodwill to well-wishers, without notifying the owners.

He said that the 729.606 hectares of land gazetted for the airport were the only known land properly donated and acquired, but the government left it to where it named Parcel B to begin the airport project work in error.

“The process of acquiring Parcel B should be revisited as the owners of the land were not consulted in any way during the acquisition process if there was any process at all.

“We are demanding that the government should hand us back our land.

“However, since the government had started development on the land in error, they should go into Parcel A and give back to the landowners the equivalent of Parcel B in Parcel A.

“A comprehensive memorandum of understanding should be entered into between the kindreds that own the extensive areas of land.”

While asking for adequate compensation to be paid to the owners of the land and the farm settlers for the crops demolished in the process of entering into the said Parcel B, he added that the idea of the purported Parjcel C and D was not part of the original plan.

He enjoined Obiano to drop the proposed Parcel C and D noting that it will displace the entire Ifite Umueri made up of three village.

Ndumanya added: “Due to the expected health and other inherent hazards associated with siting a project of this nature in an environment, we demand that an impact assessment report be made available to the community and also an insurance policy arrangement be opened for the people of the community.

“Umueri entirely welcomed the siting of the Airport on their land, but if the gesture is a ploy to annex our ancestral lands and turn Umueri into refugee camps, the government should rather relocate the airport out of their land.”

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