https://www.premiumtimesng.com/investigationspecial-reports/177579-investigation-inside-jonathans-mega-farm-project-covers-six-villages-displaced-residents-barred-from-speaking.html

People residing in six villages in Abuja, the nation’s capital, have been forced by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, to leave their homes and relocate to a neighbouring Wukara community at the Aviation Village in Abuja to pave way for the
establishment of a farm by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and his mother, Madam Afeni Eunice.

The large expanse of the land was allocated to them by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, Daily Trust reported.

The farmland, measuring 95.88 hectares, is located at the Cadastral Zone, Aviation Village, within the Abuja
Municipal Area Council, AMAC, and was specifically allocated to Ebele Integrated Farms Limited by FCTA on March 8, 2012, two days after the company applied for the land and less than three months after it was incorporated by the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC.

According to the CAC, Ebele Integrated Farms Limited, with registration number 1003866, was registered on December 20, 2011 with a share capital of N30 million, said Daily Trust.

The company has only two registered directors: Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, with share capital of N28.5 million and Madam Afeni Eunice, with share capital
of N1.5 million.

Records at the commission indicated that the nature of business the company was registered to execute are: “To carry on the business of agricultural and
mechanical farming in all its branches (which include but not limited to) crop farming, rearing of livestock, feed milling, arable and fruit farming, manufacturing and distribution of agric products, flour merchants, poultry farming, animal husbandry, fish farming, deep sea fishing, trawling and to sell and deal in same etc.”

However, Ebele Integrated Farms Limited, since its
registration in 2012, has no evidence of filing annual
returns with the CAC, which is a vital requirement to be fulfilled by all such registered companies.
The legal practitioner that filed the application
documents for the registration of the company with the commission, Arum Ifeyinwa Jane, provided the address of the company’s owners, Jonathan and Eunice, as number 23, Kolda Street, Wuse 11, Abuja.
Similar address was provided by the company to the
Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS) in its
application for the farmland.

However, Daily Trust reported that when its
correspondent visited the supposed company’s address at 23 Kolda Street, nobody around the area seemed to know that Ebele Integrated Farms Limited or any other company ever occupied the building within the past ten years. A security guard inside the compound said that the building was owned by a telecommunication firm.

When Daily Trust visited the farm near Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, over 40 articulated vehicles belonging to SCC Construction Company were seen with several staff of the company carrying out different works.

Armed soldiers and plain-cloth security operatives were seen at strategic parts of the farm which has a crocodile section near the main gate, orchards, where well irrigated mango trees provide shelter overlooking the hill top buildings said to be meeting and resting place for the president.

On the other side, there is a standard fish pond with
embankment to prevent erosion. There is also the clean water in the fish pond recycling itself. A short distance from there is a small airstrip for any helicopter to land. The airstrip is overlooking another
set of hundreds of mango trees and a small stream with water passing through all in a solid concrete walls round the farm.

The security operatives in the farm were there to, among other assignments, prevent any unauthorised person from gaining access into the farm.

However, our reporters, with their cameras and other tools, succeeded in gaining access to the facility. People living at the Wukara village, workers at the SCC construction company working in the farm, government officials in the FCT ministry, AGIS, Development Control Department of the FCDA and AMAC “have all been warned not to talk about that farm,” Daily Trust said.

The case of the displaced villagers is pathetic. Malam
Ahmadu (not real name), who was seen resting under a tree at the outskirt of Wukara, spoke to our reporters.

He said: “I was residing in Sarkin Madaki village before
we were ejected and our houses demolished. Six
villages that include Sarkin Madaki where I hail from,
Aguwan Audu, Kukeli, Anguwan Sharuwa, Badambo
and Nasarawai, were the villages people were sacked
from and demolished to provide space for this farm. Yes, we knew the farm belongs to the president but we have been warned not to say so. They said we must never discuss about the farm with anyone.

“The former FCT Commissioner of Police came in
company of some top officers and warned us at the
palace of the Aguma (village head) of Wukara that if we ever mentioned anything to anyone about the farm, they will arrest the person that made the statement and drive others from here without compensation. I am talking to you now because no one is seeing us. If you had met me in the village, I would not have talked to you.

“When they sacked us from our various villages,
government gave us plots of land each at Wukara.
People from all the six affected villages were moved to Wukara. But no monetary compensation was given to us. We had to sell part of the land allocated to us and build the remaining. It was after the commissioner of police warned us and left that we resolved to name the farm as the Aviation Farm.”

Another resident of Wukara, who simply identified
himself as Malam, told Daily Trust at BasanJiya, a
nearby community where he went to buy provisions,
that their problem is not just because their villages have been converted to the president’s farm, but because they took away their houses, places of worship, farmlands only to be given a piece of land, each, in return. “We are all farmers. None of us had his farm replaced. How do they want us to cultivate?

“We all had our various sources of water before we were sacked from our villages. Here at Wukara, we scoop water from the ground to drink, cook and use at home because we have 2 boreholes that do not work. We complained to the Aguma who said he has written to SCC Construction Company but nothing has been done till date.

“Yes, they are constructing access road for us through the bush path. We do not want that one. Let them construct the one that will burst near the airport gate. That’ll be shorter and safer for us.”
When Daily Trust visited the palace of the Aguma of
Wukara, Malam Mohammed Sarki, the people seen
around the palace said the traditional ruler was
indisposed.

One of the elders was however said: “Nobody can speak to you about the farm. On the issue of the road and water, we have written to AMAC and SCC. Go to their offices and ask them why they refused to help us.”

Daily Trust reporters visited AMAC twice; first the
chairman was said to be in a meeting, while on the
second occasion he was said to have gone to the FCT
ministry for official consultation.
A senior council official who pleaded anonymity,
however, said: “Look, do not waste your time. The
chairman will never see you on this matter. How can the president compensate them? Advise them to come and beg the chairman for a borehole and clinic, that is more realistic.”

At the SCC Construction office in Utako District,
Abuja, efforts to see the project manager were not
successful.
However, a top official of the company, who pleaded
not to be identified, said that Aguma had actually
written a two-page letter to the company, dated May 16,
2014, requesting them to sink additional boreholes for
them, adding: “In as much as we sympathise with the
community, as contractors, we cannot use our money to
develop their community for them.
“What they are asking for is not provided in the contract
agreement. As a construction company, we only employ
people with skills. But we went out of our way and
employed their people who are now working for us. I am
not privy to the contract sum, I would have told you.
But it is a fact that what qualified us most for this
contract was what the president saw our company did in
General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s farm in Minna. You
know, it was SCC that constructed it also.”
Meanwhile, the development makes people wonder if
the farmland in question was actually intended to be
used as such by the designers of Abuja.
A retired top ranking civil servant, Chief Bisi Winsala
Kolins, who said he used all his retirement benefit to
build houses in Garki that were demolished by the
FCDA on the excuse that the area was meant for
business and not residential, averred: “I am aware that in
the Abuja master plan, no part of the Abuja Municipal
Area Council (AMAC), including the aviation village,
is meant to be used for farming. It is also a fact that the
Abuja master plan cannot be redesigned to
accommodate any new development. That farm must,
therefore, be demolished and relocated to outside
AMAC for justice and fair play.”
Former Minister of the FCT, Malam Nasir el-Rufa’i, in a
response from the United Kingdom to an online inquiry
by Daily Trust, said no part of Abuja Municipal Area is
supposed to be used for farming purposes, including the
aviation village now housing Ebele Integrated Farms.
El-Rufa’i said: “Aviation Village is self-explanatory …
it is part of Phase 5 of the Federal Capital City (FCC)
meant to accommodate aviation company needs –
hangars, fuelling and maintenance facilities, housing
and hotels. There were no provisions for agricultural
land in the city footprint.
“Farmlands are located outside the city in places like
Gaube, Kuje and Kwali. I am surprised that agricultural
land is being allocated in the footprint of the FCT. This
may be another violation of the Abuja Dream…..God
Save us.”
At the Abuja Geographic Information system (AGIS), a
top official who initially doubted claims by our
reporters that the application by Ebele Integrated Farms
Limited was approved in only two days from the date of
the application, was shocked to see the company’s file
number MISC 117899 with AGIS.
He said: “You are right, look at the farm’s file. Their
application for the allocation of the plot was dated
March 6, 2012 and approval given on March 8, 2012.
The initial plot number was 1680 before it was later
changed to 1683. The change in the plot number does
not affect the plot itself. Look at the note written with
red pen that the FCT Minister attached to his approval.
“In all my years in AGIS I have never seen an
application for plot of land treated with such a rush. If
we were allowed to treat it like the normal applications,
we would have verified the address. Even if the address
they gave was correct and they later moved to a new
address, they are supposed to notify us of their new
address.”
Mr. Jonathan’s multibillion naira integrated farm
project has attracted a lot of criticisms from the public,
mainly because the president’s salary and legitimate
earnings as a president could not afford him to own a
multi-billion Naira farm project.
An NGO, Purpose Driven Human Initiative, in a media
advertisement said the president’s farm project has
vividly demonstrated why his administration has been
unable to fight corruption.
According to the NGO, the president’s action of owning
the farm has contravened Fifth Schedule Part 1 (code of
conduct for public officers) of the 1999 constitution,
section 1, which states: “A public officer shall not put
himself in position where his personal interest conflicts
with his duties and responsibilities.”
Reacting to the publication, New Generation Coalition,
a pro-Jonathan group, argued that the president’s
project has not violated the Constitution, arguing that
the Constitution allows a public servant to engage in
farming activities.
It also pointed out that former president Olusegun
Obasanjo also acquired a farmland in Abuja while in
office in 2005.
Also, some legal experts who spoke to Daily Trust
expressed different views on the issue. While some
argue that the president was morally wrong to undertake
such ventures while in office, others think differently.
Below are some of the views in their words:

Rendered pple in 6 villages homeless bcoz of a farm?


I WANT A PDP SUPPORTER TO DIFFERENTIATE SUCH ACT FROM "WICKEDNESS"?

GEJ IS A TYRANT.......

Reading Machine Needed Urgently..

Hmm.
May God help Us ooh.

We'll level that place before this time next year.

Sorry I won't be reading this. Just too long!