•IGP Kayode Egbetokun
Obollo community in Udenu Local Council of Enugu State has urged the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Agbetokun, to act fast and nip in the bud alleged attempt by a former governor of the state to acquire communal land with support from security officials.
The community made this known through a petition written to the IGP, accusing the former governor of using his allies to instigate a crisis in the community to grab the communal land, reports The Guardian.
The Donee, Power of Attorney, Oha Obollo in Council, Chief Matthew Agu, who signed the petition, dated December 21, 2023, said that the former governor, while serving as governor in 2015, had solicited for a large expanse of land for the establishment of a dry sea port in Obollo-Afor, a request that was granted with the understanding that it was for public good.
He said: “But as the years rolled by, we discovered that he had tricked us into donating the land. It was clear that he was planning to grab the property for his personal use.”
We kicked against it because that land is not for anybody’s personal use.
“Seeing that he could not achieve his plan of taking the land for himself, through the dry sea port story, he resorted to engineering one of the clans in the community to claim ownership of the property, against an existing court order indicating that the land belongs to the entire Obollo and not one particular clan.”
Agu narrated several attempts made by the ex-governor through a serving police DIG who hails from the same local council to frustrate efforts to resolve the issue legally, alleging that the police in the state had been compromised.
“The Inspector General, this is a high-level conspiracy against Obollo people to incriminate and cramp my people to jail in their own judgment. Recall that in my petition dated August 21, 2023, I told you about how a DIG, then a CP, had made himself available to make sure that my people of Obollo were dealt with criminally.
“Same with a former governor of the state who wanted this property for official purposes, but when the property was made available to him for that very purpose, he reneged and wanted to personalise our property using other guises.
“In 2018, I, the leader of the community, was clamped into the prison yard, where I spent eight days, and when the DPP wrote their report that I am the rightful owner of the property and brought me out of the prison yard, the then governor insisted that the then Attorney General must resign. This was to be, but for the intervention of late Justice C.C. Nweze of the Supreme Court.”
He pleaded with the IGP to intervene so as not to allow the anger of members of the community to snowball into a full-blown crisis that could consume many lives and property, adding that the police boss should investigate the matter and return the judgment creditors back to their property.
