DRUMS OF WAR IN ISHIAGU OVER OVUMTE LAND DISPUTE
….Community Leaders, PDP accuse Umahi, Aide of instigating crisis
By Chinwe Imo-Eze Onwosi
This is not the best of time for the people of Amagu village in Ishiagu community, Ivo LGA, of Ebonyi State following the Ovumte land dispute, that has been apparently hijacked for political reasons by some gladiators working hard to cause disaffection among indigenes of the community, The Voice investigations reveals.
Community leaders who spoke to The Voice lamented that the once peaceful community has been turned into a crises zone by the actions of the few politicians who are acting on the biddings of their master ‘The governor’ by using their privileged positions to intimidate the people.
They stressed that, the Governor was using his Aides from the area, one of whom is his Commissioner for Information, Uchenna Orji to instigate crises and spite the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim and other political gladiators from the area who remained in PDP after Umahi’s decampment to APC.
The contentious Ovumte Amagu land The Voice Scooped is a Community land that every indigenes especially stakeholders of the area has the obligation to decide what it should be used for.
While few political appointees of the Governor in the area had made attempts to covet the land for their personal uses, the community had put up a fight by resisting these ploy.
In a petition written by Some stakeholders and sent to The Voice, the attention of appropriate authorities had been drawn to the brewing crises in the area which they alleged was being sponsored by the State government.
They stressed that the Ovumte land inherited by Amagu community ownership predates their grand father’s and is still a popular practice in Igbo land till date stating that the said communal land as the tradition demands is left for chiefs, elders and elites of such Community to decide what the land will be used for, whether to be allotted, sold or used for communal farming.
According to the petition, “As History has it that the community elites in the 90s allotted some pacel of the land to their illustrious sons for residential purposes with an agreement that failure to use the land for the agreed purpose within the time frame automatically invalidates the allocation and the land reverses to the community.
“Inline with this, some utilized their own allotted land while others did not. In other not to compromise the standard, there is need for the community gentlemen agreement to be kept to the later.
“On the heels of the above, the community sat and decides to pacelate the OVUMTE and set it out for Development and this time rather than giving it out at no cost, it was rather subsidized for every indigen of amagu and also with limit of plots to buy in other to enable it get to all household in the community.
“The insatiable nature of humanbeing culminated to few persons who feels dominance over the communal land to head to court against the community’s interest.
” Court having studied the matter and saw that the community decision is not repugnance to natural justice, equity and fairness, and in recognition of the existence of traditional institution ruled in favour of the community.
” It is worrisome that the Ebonyi State Government neglected the standing court order and reordered that no activities whatsoever should be carried out on the land as against the initial court decision on the subject matter.
The statement revealed that crisis started when the delegation of government instructed that the court order validly secured by Amagu should be ignored and what they called executive order should be followed.
They said that this executive order did not go down well with the community which triggered crisis immediately to the extent that government delegate narrowly escaped being linched.
“To this end therefore, we call on necessary agencies to call the Ebonyi State Government to order and that they should observe the supremacy of the law and avoid taking laws into their hands, before they created problems bigger than them
In Another statement by Ebonyi State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP), which bluntly called out the Commissioner for Information and State Orientation Barrister Uchenna Orji Uchenna over his alleged attempts to incite violence among Ebonyians and recreating the Effium crisis in Ishiagu, Ivo Local Government Area.
The statement which was signed by Barrister Silas Joseph Onu Publicity Secretary of PDP made available to journalists in Abakaliki stated that the Ebonyi State Government, through the Commissioner for Information have perfected plans and procured journalists to write an inciting story against the Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Senator Anyim Pius Anyim by linking him to grabbing of the ovumte Amagu land.
According to the statement, the State Government has allegedly instructed these friendly journalists to create an imaginary story of how the Pius Anyim embarked on a land grabbing exercise in Ishiagu. Saying it is aimed at creating disaffection and incite violence against Senator Anyim, thus re-enacting the Effium crisis in Ishiagu. Adding that when they successfully set the community ablaze, they will look for people to blame.
The PDP decried the twisting of facts, outright provocation, misrepresentation and campaign of calumny embarked upon by Mr orji and his paid agents to divert the attention from the real issue, which is the conversion of communal land by dragging senator Anyim into the matter with the sole aim of attracting sympathy.
The statement called on the whole nation to witness what the David Nweze Umahi led administration in Ebonyi State is plotting to unleash in Ishiagu making emphasis that the State is yet to restore peace in Effium where it’s agents ignited crises, and now plans to ignite another crisis.
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The Voice gathered after a phone conversation with Chairman of the Amagu Ishiagu Development Union, Mr Livinus Uka who spoke with our reporter explained that the land belonged to the entire community and not to any individual, just as the court had ruled with an order for the few individuals inciting crises to desist from the contentious land, strikingout the case in their favour for lack of merit on November, 17 2020.
His words “the land in question is just a general land of the community. Now because our homes are increasing, we decided to make that community land a home settlement.
“The people living in the land knows that the land is community land and they do perform a kind of rate to show that they are not the original owners of the land,
“The few individuals took us to court in January but on 17 November 2020, the court struck out the case to our favour for lack of merit.
“All of a sudden, this People again started destroying the beacons the community planted in the land, running to the government because of the political crisis in the state so that government will use their power to support their undesirable plans.
“One of them had issued us with Appeal notice which assumed that the case is still in court.”
Mr Uka lamented that the once peaceful community has been turned into a crises zone by the actions of the few politicians, urging the Government appointees to desist from using their privileged positions to intimidate the people.
“This is a misunderstanding in the community where some people think that they can do anything they like in the community.
“They are just trying to stop what the community is doing and I pray to God to help them realize that there is no gain in crisis and align themselves in what the community is doing and stop accusing fingers on an innocent person because they want to attract a public sympathy from anybody.
“The struggle is for the interest of the whole community and no individual has a hand in it.
“Anyone involving Senator Anyim Pius Anyim is doing so to attract sympathy for himself because Anyim is a big figure in the country.
“The land is a farm settlement but now the community want to share it that every family will have a portion and it took the community 20years, to get the actual figure of the community so that every family will be accommodated.
“I urge those in government to stop using government to intimidate the common people in order to gain what they were not to get.” He said
In January 2020, entire episode resulted in a legal dispute in which the Court ruled against the few individuals with an order to desist from the land.
Also, the Chairman Ovumute Land Committee, Mr Chinedu Makwe, when contacted confirmed that the problem and instigating of crises was from a few individuals who were claiming that the community land belonged to them.
Makwe added: “We only have problem with some individuals in the community that claimed that the community land belongs to them and went to court, and on the basis of that, the court gave us (community) judgement on November 17, 2020.
“After the court judgement, these people did not go to appeal with the stipulated 2weeks and that is clear that they don’t have any more claim to the land but because they are Ebonyi state government employees, they are trying to use the political situation in the state now and turn our community to a war zone but by the grace of God, it will not work.
” This group of people are the ones inciting problem, creating tension where there are not.
“We are telling them that we need development like other communities. We don’t want a crisis. They should attract development for us and not a crisis.
” We also urge the state government not to put a crisis where there is none. That is all we plead.” he said.
