The mammoth crowd thronged the state secretariat, Awka, with
placards carrying different inscriptions like; Sack Lawrence Chinwuba Now, Law
Is Death, Here if Your Coffin, Thief, Converting Our Heritance To Private Use,
Chinwuba Must Leave Awka For Us, and host of others, noted with strong
equivocation that the state commissioner should be sack in the interest peace in the
state capital.
The protesters, who are in their advance ages 40 and above barricade the entrance of
the state secretariat bearing white coffin, with the
commissioner for housing picture on it and traditional quotes to exorcise non indegene in their community.
Speaking on behalf of the protesters, the leader of the group
and the youth leader, Awka Development Union of Nigeria, Mr. Obi Ochije with
strong vituperation called on the state governor, Chief Wilie Obiano to remove
the commissioner, who they alleged had illegally
acquire landed properties in the state capital, of the intent for public use, but later discovered the landed properties are now been sold to other people
against the original motive of the acquisition.
Also speaking, a community leader, Reverend Victor Ifeanyi, alleged that the commissioner wrongfully allocated landed properties against the overriding interest of the
community,
‘’We have done a lot of sacrifices, Governor Lodge belongs
to Us, Fire Service is our land, state command , prisons, Nipost, INEC LGA
Headquarters, , Police Area Command, SSS Office, Awka South LGA headquarters,
these are fundamental interest and nobody is quarreling about all these , Saint
Paul’s College, JTC even all these areas, we know is for the betterment of the
entire state, we are not against these’’
‘’We are against taking our land and giving to an individual,
the good example is the present Rockland, it is owned by one Peter Obi-Ene, an
individual from Amogwu-okwe in Enugu state, he came he and he gave him seventy hectares
of land , government told us that they want to acquire it for the overring
public interest, but at the end of it , its now converter to a private business
enterprise’’
‘’In that place now, they are now selling land for eighteen million and above,
you can’t tell me that you acquire land for public use and you selling it to Mr
B, No Awka Man will hear this and be happy and are saying government has power, No! no!!
no!!!,. We will challenge that power, because we know what the constitution
says about the land use act and its for everybody to read.’’
‘’What we are saying, currently, the same Law Chiwunba is
facilitating, you know they have started branding Awka names, before you know
what is happening, you would not know they have branded the land behind your house
they are talking about, in Abuja, Gwarinpa is Gwarinpa, Asokoro is Asokoro ,
they still retains originality, we have written government severally and we have had series of meeting with them ,
we told them , let us retain this originality and all these things are not
done.
Addressing with restive protesters, the head of civil
service in Anambra state , Mr. Chidi Ezeoke urged the aggrieved indigenes to
assert caution in the interest of the
state, promised register their grievances before the state governor and assured
their demands will be taken as a matter of priority for government to address.
Speaking when contacted on phone, the embattled Anambra state
commissioner for Lands and Urban development, Mr. Lawrence Chinwuba described the allegation
as false and outline the efforts of the state government invested to ensure every party in the community is compensated.
He lamented the situation where different group from the
community would come up with series of demand s after the state government had given the statutory
twenty per cent payment and other levy required on each land acquired.
His word: ‘I am surprised that such issue will come up,
after we have paid all the levy recognized under the law to stakeholders of
each community, the land in question is acquired in 2010 and to this end, we have given the fund requested by
the village heads, even up till now, they keep coming up with all sort of monetary
demands.’’
‘’The Judges quarters also suffer same demands, where the
judges are almost frustrated to leave the sites, where it was reported they are
being faced with different daily demands and levy from different set of youths
of the same community on a land that has been duly acquired by government, only
to be faced with daily demands from different people.’’
‘’People should just learn to allow government to develop
the state, and refrain from the act of vilifying development programmes of the
state government .’’ Said Commissioner