Sunday 9 September 2012

Uruan Land Dispute: Ekere Afia Speaks Out



BY EMMANUEL SILAS
Based on the media reports and allegations leveled against the former member representing Uyo State Constituency in the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Hon. Ekere Afia on the 27 parcels of land in Ibiaku Issiet, said to have been acquired for federal government’s fish project, the later has stated that the matter was resolved in the Uyo High court in his favour.
Hon. Ekere Afia who stated this while speaking with Weekly Insight in his Uyo residence over the weekend, retorted that he was an indigene of Anan Ikono in Uyo Local Government Area and that he bought the said parcels of land from individuals with agreements in Ibiaku Issiet in Uruan Local Government Area for his personal use since he was not from the area.
Explaining further, Hon. Afia said, “Those that raised the story misled the people. It is not the federal government project the way they are saying it, it is a community-based project and so the framework of the community based project is not such that the federal government would acquire a land for it, once it is approved, the community in which that project is approved for, should be able to provide land that is not owned by anybody.
“But Hon. Bassey Etim that influenced the project for the community, did not even go to the community to ask for the land but chose a land for himself, [and that is the] land that belongs to some other person. We started buying land in that place as early as 2009. I bought and Bassey Etim also bought some land there. At a point because he was paying peanuts, they refused to sell the land to him.
“The land is more than 27 parcels; it’s only that it was 27 parcels they encroached into. I have over 5 hectares in that place and I bought it with my hard earned money. I did not inherit it. I could remember a case where somebody was deported in South Africa, they came to me and I had to provide the money. So it was not a matter of being a stumbling block. He came in to the land with the project without my knowledge. The village asked them to give them time to allocate plots of land for the project as the land he is encroaching has been sold to some other person but he bluntly refused and he is saying that I am a stumbling block. As I am talking to you now, the project is no more there because we went to court in May 2011 and Federal Ministry of Agriculture came after few adjournments and applied for out of court settlement.”
The former lawmaker stated that the ministry of agriculture and water resources and all those concerned in the matter including Hon. Bassey Etim, met in the conference room of Ministry of Justice in Abuja on this matter. “When he (Bassey Etim) realized that it was not going to work, he now dragged in the state government, and told the governor that he has attracted project from federal ministry of agriculture and water resources worth about two billion naira and that the problem he had was land and that there was a land in his community that government should come and acquire for that purpose. It would be funny to know that on the first of February 2012, the government published in the Pioneer that they have acquired all the lands in that area for the purpose of community based project particularly for the federal ministry of agriculture,” he stated.

He emphasized that on the 14 of February, 2012, the federal ministry of agriculture and water resources and Institute of Oceanography represented by their lawyers in the presence of Hon Bassey Etim’s lawyer, came to the court and filed its written terms of settlement that became the final judgment of the court that they have vacated his land.
“All the lawyers adopted the terms of settlement which became the final settlement of that very matter. All these hiding [of] his face, sending people to make comment and media accusation, I don’t know what it [is] all about.” he retorted.
According to him, “There is no such project because when we were on the matter, the federal ministry of agriculture and Institute of Oceanography stated that it was not in their policy to buy land for such project, that any community that applied for that project should be able to provide a land for them and that if they had known that the land shown to them belonged to somebody who was not even a party to the project, they wouldn’t have come. So they have since left. It could be if the community showed them a land which is not in combat with anyway they would come back. But as we are talking, there is no such project in that place.
“I claimed for damages of fifty million, ten million for special damages and forty million for general damages. And they said during the negotiation that they are not going to pay for any damages because as they are leaving, there are some structures they put on ground which automatically belonged to me that I should be satisfied with those ones and that was what formed the terms of settlement. I don’t have any problem with Hon. Bassey Etim, what I did was to protect my investments. If they had come to me, then the two billion naira project of which even if they have spent one hundred and fifty million, there wouldn’t have been a lost”.
Hon Afia stressed that he spent one hundred and fifty million naira and used two years to locate the land in that area, saying that if he had brought such a project, he should have realized that the land was not a community land but was sold to him by individuals.
He said, “You don’t just bring a community based project to the land which does not belong to the community. I don’t have any problem with Bassey Etim, he is intelligent enough. By his pedigree, he should know the implication of what he is doing. He had never approached me. When I heard that they were bulldozing my land, I went there but his man, one Akpanama was there and had brought thugs into the place. Because of the way they were behaving, I left and instituted a case in the court.
“When I started buying that land, the Ibiaku Issiet village council gave a letter with the list of requirements which I have to fulfill before I continue buying the land. I fulfilled the requirements by giving all they listed in the letter. After I had fulfilled the requirements, they sent another letter approving my entry into the said parcels of land. The land is not a communal land; it belongs to individual members of that community who sold the land individually with individual agreements to me.”
Meanwhile, in the terms of agreement as contained in the Uyo High Court proceedings of Tuesday, February 14, 2012, presided over by Hon. Justice Godwin Abraham and made available to Weekly Insight all the parties through their counsels involved in the said matter had accepted to abide by the conditions for amicable resolution of the imbroglio.
According to the document, A.B. Okoho Esq., Umo Asuquo Esq., and Rosemary Kogbodi Esq. who were counsels to Hon. Ekere Afia, Hon. Bassey Etim and Nigeria Institute of Oceanography & Marine Research and Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources respectively, adopted the terms of settlement and urged the court to enter it as judgment.
The adopted terms of settlement, among others in the document, declared Hon. Ekere Afia as “the owner of the twenty-seven parcels of land lying, situate, known and called Usung Uduok in Ibiaku Issiet, Uruan Local Government Area and entitled to a quiet and peaceful enjoyment and a certificate of occupancy of those parcels of land. The order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants either agents, servants and/or privies from committing further act of trespass  in whatever manner or form on the plaintiff’s said twenty-seven parcels of land…
“The parties together with their lawyers have met for an out of court settlement and have unanimously agree upon…That the first defendant (Nigeria Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research) and the third defendant (Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources) are to vacate the 27 parcels of land… And that the 1st and 3rd defendant’s vacation of the 27 parcels of land is to represent the full and final settlement of the reliefs in this action”
Accordingly the terms of settlement filed by the parties was adopted as final judgment in the matter by the presiding Justice Abraham.
It could be recalled that Weekly Insight Vol. 5 No. 34 of August 27 – August 30, 2012 reported on how the people of Uyo Federal Constituency in Akwa Ibom State condemned in strong terms, the purported claim of 27 parcels of land by Mr. Ekere Afia at the site of the Federal Government’s N2 billion aquaculture development project in Ibiaku Issiet village, Uruan Local Government Area of the state.
The report had also stated that the former Chairman of Uyo Federal  Constituency committee, Elder Jimmy Akpanamma said the decision by Mr. Ekere Afia to obstruct the construction of the fish project through spurious claim of ownership of 27 parcels of land at the project site was a great disservice, not only to Uyo Federal Constituency, the host community, but the entire state and the south-south region, as the project, he observed, was the only one of such projects sited in the region.  Ndipmonguwem Effiong, Idong Okpon and Elder Albert Akpan had spoken in that story in condemnation of Ekere Afia’s alleged action but spoke in glowing terms for the things said to have been achieved by Hon. Bassey Etim.



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