The Umuzuocha community in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State is at daggers-drawn with the State Government following the alleged non-payment of compensation for all their land acquired for developmental purposes since the creation of the state in 1991.

The people are also argue that the N78 million paid as part of compensation by the previous administration for some of their acquired land by the state ministry of land was seized by an estate surveyor appointed by the community to serve as its agent.

The community at the end of its meeting yesterday in Awka forwarded a letter to Governor Willie Obiano, asking him to urgently intervene as the people have sacrificed so much as the host of the state capital.

In the letter signed by the chairman, Mr. Chris Ndibe, and secretary, Mr. Emeka Chukwu, the people observed that out of the 33 villages that make up Awka, Umuzuocha contributed the largest portion of its land to government for development purposes without being appreciated.

The letter reads: “As a village, we donated land for the building of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the University Teaching Hospital, the Anambra Broadcasting Service, the Awka branch of the Nigeria Communications Commission, the House of Assembly, the headquarters of the state Universal Basic Education Board, among others.

“The church also has a large chunk of our land as the Catholic Cathedral and St. John of God Secondary are on our land. Today, our children have no more land to live on and the compensation paid to the community cannot be assessed years after it was approved.

“Agreed that the land use act of 1978 states that all land in the state is vested in the government to administer and hold in trust for the use of the common benefit of all for an overriding public interest, we should not be sent packing from our town on that premise.

“What we hear every now and then are frivolous allocations that are allowing individuals enter our communal land purporting to have overriding public interest. It will be of immense benefit for His Excellency look into the enormous fraud and intimidation being perpetrated in the Ministry of Lands using the governor’s name. This is not good enough.”

They solicited the intervention of Governor Obiano to assist the community recover their 175 compensatory plots and the monetary compensation made to the village by his predecessor, Mr. Peter Obi.

The eldest man in the community, Mr. Raphael Agbasi, wondered why government should take all their land saying that posterity would not be fair to the present generation that all the land left by their great grand fathers were given away this time.

He asked: “If the fore fathers did what we have allowed government to do with our land, where would we be sitting to talk about land?”

The people at the end of their meeting marched to the affected government establishments.

•Photo shows Governor Obiano.

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