A DUPLEX located at Diamond City Estate, Enugu and belonging to the former commissioner for lands and Urban Development in the state Dr. Victor Nnam, was on November 9, marked for demolition by the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority, ECTDA.

In a notice served to the former commissioner, the ECTDA cited a violation of stop-work order as part of the reasons for its decision to demolish the duplex. ECTDA also alleged that the former commissioner had gone ahead to build the duplex without its approval. It gave an order that the house be removed within 14 days.

However, there are indications that the latest move by ECTDA to demolish the house belonging to the former commissioner might be connected to his decision to make his resignation public and the circumstances surrounding it.

Although the former commissioner has been severally accused of corruption and complicity in land racketeering during his time in the ministry, the question of why his house was not marked for demolition while he was still an officer readily comes to mind.

Recall that the commissioner resigned his appointment with the state government in October after his proposal to reform land administration in the state was, according to him, “turned down without any reason”.

In the resignation letter titled, ‘Letter of the resignation of my appointment as the Commissioner for Land and Urban Development, Enugu State,’ and dated October 29, Nnam said he was unhappy about the removal of the professional heads of departments in his ministry, which he alleged was on a punitive ground.

In the letter, Nnam alleged that the state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, refused to approve his proposal for a Geometric Information System (GIS) land administration to stamp out land grabbers and create investors’ confidence in Enugu State.

“The reason for my resignation is the recent removal of the professional heads of the department under me on punitive grounds for simply doing their jobs diligently, “he said. “My conscience will no longer allow me to continue to serve your administration while those innocent professional senior civil servants are punished for doing the right thing.”

Culture of land grabbing

Before Nnam resigned from his position as land commissioner, complaints of land grabbing by the government was commonplace, so much so that it was perceived in several quarters to be a silent official state policy of the government.

Much of the complaints were hinged on the fact that the current administration deployed land grabbing as a weapon to suppress the citizens economically.

In mid-2020, for instance, several communities protested the culture of land grabbing in the state. The people of Ibagwa Nike, in Enugu-East local government, are still in deep agony over the forceful takeover of “ancestral land of the Umuaneke Ode family with over 150 buildings already erected without compensation.

In 2018, indigenes of Ogbagu Agbani community in Nsukka local government held a peaceful protest where they told the state government to pay compensation for food crops and economic trees worth over N50 million, which were allegedly destroyed at the site of a proposed housing estate.

Across Nsukka, Orba in Udenu Local government, Ndiagu Attakwu in Akegbe Ugwu, Nkanu West local government and Ibagwa Nike in Enugu East, the story was (is) the same.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/after-resignation-former-commissioners-house-marked-for-demolition-in-enugu/

That's politics for you.

[img]https://media./images/8e060e31a82c67df368cd9961c554fba/tenor.gif[/img]