By Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo
Former Minister of Power, Professor Bart Nnaji has denied his alleged involvement in land grabbing at Onuogba Nike community in Enugu East Local Government of Enugu State, saying that he is a victim of blackmailing campaign by “squatters”.
Nnaji, who is the Chairman of Geometric Power Group, Aba, has been engaged in a long drawn land dispute with people he described as “squatters that came from Ezza Nkomoro in Ebonyi State and settled on his land”.
The professor of robotics, who is now a major player in power generation and distribution in Nigeria, was in the news for the wrong reasons last Thursday, September 12, 2024 when a group of people demonstrated at Enugu accusing him of land grabbing.
But in a statement issued at the weekend, Nnaji presented his own facts regarding the land in contention at Onuogba Nike, saying that he legitimately bought the land and took possession of the property 19 years ago.
In the statement signed by his media assistant, Chijioke Ogbodo, made available to the media in Umuahia, Prof Nnaji said that it was out of his magnanimity that he allowed the squatters make use of the land pending the time he would develop it.
However, he lamented that that “several squatters” have for long been engaged in “spirited blackmail and camapign” to make him relinquish ownership of his land so they could permanently occupy it.
According to the Geometric Power boss, the claims made by the protesting squatters reported by a section of the media were “baseless, false, misleading, and immoral”.
He insisted that, contrary to what they public to believe, “the squatters are, indeed, the land grabbers. Nnaji noted that the section of the media, especially the social media, that went to town with the squatters’ “funny claims” were unfair to him by not getting across to hear his own side in the dispute
He said that those celebrating the false allegation against him in the media “did not even bother to contact the Catholic Bishop of the Enugu Diocese, the Most Reverend Dr. Callistus Onaga, who was mentioned multiple times at the press conference”.
According to him, Bishop Onaga has been fully involved in mediation over the land dispute hence “if they had attempted to speak to His Lordship who intervened in the matter purely on humanitarian grounds, the reporters would have obtained the true and correct picture”.
Giving a narrative of how Prof Nnaji became the owner of the land now in dispute, the statement said that he purchased the piece of land in 2005 when he came back from the USA.
Nnaji’s intention of buying the land from the original owner, Chief Hyacinth Alinta was “to establish an auto part manufacturing industry and independent power project in Enugu State in conjunction with his South Korean partners”.
Chief Alinta, now deceased was said to have bought the land from the original owners in Onuogba and was in possession of the Certificate of Occupancy when he later sold the land to Prof Nnaji.
Trouble began “when Prof Nnaji wanted to clear the land and start the project after the purchase (as) some people, who recently migrated from Ezza Nkomoro in Ebonyi State to the Onuogba Nike Community and were squatting on the land became violent”.
With the violent disposition of the said squatters, Nnaji suspended the project pending the determination of the court case he had inherited from Chief Alinta over the squatters’ presence on the land and ownership claims. The case was resolved in favour of the Alinta family in January 2023.
Nnaji, had again attempted to restart his project in 2013 but had to pause on humanitarian ground, following the intervention of Bishop Onaga to allow the squatters to decide on either of the two options given to them. They were asked to either pay off Prof Nnaji and remain on the land or “vacate the land peacefully “.
But for 11 years there was no response from the squatters prompting the Catholic Bishop of Enugu to once again intervene and the squatters were given August 30, 2024 deadline to accept or reject any of the two options on offer.
Ogbodo said that the squatters have “over the years, resorted to threatening the landowner’s workers. This culminated in the 2023 murder of a member of their community, Mr. Sunday Ozoemena, who was contracted to construct the perimeter fence of the land”.
While the police are still handling the murder case, Prof Nnaji has continued “to display patience and compassion for the squatters, especially when some of them disclosed to their Parish Priest that they had been misled and defrauded by some of their members who had ‘sold’ the land to them”.
Nnaji was also made another offer to the squatters “out of sheer magnanimity” as he had informed Bishop Onaga that would provide a grant of up to N1 million to any of the squatters who accepted to move out of the land.
To make the process easier and simpler, the squatters were also asked to register with their Parish Priest in Onuogba who had also contacted Prof Nnaji on their behalf.
In all these show of compassion and magnanimity, Nnaji’s media assistant said that the squatters have remained obstinate and continue to insist that the land belongs to them “without any shred of evidence”.
He alleged that when the eviction exercise eventually commenced “the youths were threatening everyone with extreme violence in the guise of being ESN members”.
“After over 11 years of waiting for the squatters to do the right thing, Professor Nnaji has finally given up on them and has taken all necessary legal and moral steps to take possession of his property and develop the project,” Ogbodo said.
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