An illustrious indigene and community philanthropist in Idi-Opi Nsukka, in the Northern Senatorial District of Enugu state, Engr. Nnaemeka Mmadu, has denied a barrage of allegations against him by some persons in his community, accusing him of land grabbing and intimidation. Mmadu, in a telephone interview with NIGERIAN NEWSLEADER Newspaper, dismantled the allegations, insisting that the actual land grabbers in the community, Umuhunato, Idi-Opi Nsukka, were his accusers. He said he had evidences to back up his counter-claims. Excerpts:
Question: There are complaints from individuals in your community that you are into land grabbing. That, infact, you were grabbing lands belonging to your people in Umugadu village in Idi-Opi, Nsukka?
Well, number one, everything they are saying is fabricated lies. They (people accusing him of land grabbing) are the real land grabbers. They are a bunch of hungry people who think that their only means of making money was to look for big men (wealthy men) that they would frame up and get money from. This is their main business in our community. They are in the business of land grabbing; grabbing the land of innocent citizens of the community. These people currently have more than ten (10) cases in court pertaining to the same parcel of land within the same location in the community which is Agu-umuhu. The cases are mostly in Nsukka High Court. Currently, there's one case they lost at the Nsukka High Court. They also lost at the Appeal Court and now they are giving signal that they are going to the Supreme Court. There's one case they have with the market and the local government (Nsukka Local Government) on this same Agu-umuhu land. Then, there's one case they have with a family called the Atama family on this same Agu-umuhu land. And there's also one case they have with one Christopher on this same land. As a matter of fact, l don't want to be mentioning names of people without their permission in a media interview like this or giving out their contacts. But basically these people have upto ten cases currently on-going in court on this same land with different people. We need to get this story correctly.
Question: Is it in one community or different communities?
The truth is that there are three hamlets in Umuhunato community in Idi-Opi Nsukka, Enugu state. These people refused to explain these things correctly to people. Umuhunato is comprised of three different hamlets: Umuhu, Umuamushi and Umugadu. Ancestrally, Umuhu is the eldest of the three hamlets. I am from Umuhu, while they are from Umugadu. These three hamlets have the same ancestral father. We have the same ancestor which is how we inherited that common land called Agu-Umuhu land. The particular location in question in that Agu-Umuhu is called Ugwu-ala-ugwurogo, because there is a hill that is in that location called Ugwurogo. And it is not called Ugwurogo Umugadu, it is called Ugwurogo-Idi. Now, the road connecting this land is Oho-odo road. And that road is today named by the government as Chief Patrick Mmadu Road, that's my late father.
Question: So, which land in question made you a land grabber?
The land they are talking about that made them to tag me a land grabber was the land l bought from somebody who bought from someone that their grandfather (Chief Ebonyi Nnam-Alu) sold to. Then the second portion of land in the same location was owned by an Umuhu man, one late Augustine Ugwu, whose wife they are now referring to as Mrs Perpetua Ugwu. Late Augustine Ugwu was from Umuhu where l come from. The land belonged to Umuhunato community. I am from Umuhu hamlet, a part of Umuhunato. All of us are Umuhunato. I bought this land and another. They are two pieces of land that l bought from Perpetua Ugwu and her son. This Umugadu people accusing me of land grabbing came and started saying that they had leased it to Perpetua, and that Perpetua is not the rightful owner. As a son of the soil and as the youth president of the Umuhu community, Perpetua had explained to me that the land was never on lease; that it was a land that they owned by inheritance considering that the land is in Umuhunato which is known as Agu-Umuhu. That is what the land is known. Then, Perpetua in question, owned that land by inheritance and l bought it from them. They (Perpetua Ugwu's family) were not paying any land rent to Umugadu people as they had claimed. They are not supposed to pay rent to Umugadu. You cannot be paying somebody rent for something you are a part of its ownership. The one l bought from an outsider was more like buying back the land because l needed to use it for a building project in my own community. My father's house is two poles away from this land in question. The location of this land is Agu-Umuhu. However, because these guys are notorious land grabbers. They are the real land grabbers! Their grandfather had sold the first portion of the land to somebody in another part of our community in 1973 and the deed of assignment on the land was executed in 1985. The person had sold to another person in 2003. And these guys are now coming to claim that they have re-sold the land again to their in-law in 2016 or 2018 or thereabout.
Question: Do you have proofs to your claims?
Of course, l have the documents to show the root title with which their grandfather sold it, and the one l bought with. So, these people disclaimed that they were not in the know that their father had sold the land and that it was a mistake. They are now insisting that l must re-buy the land or compensate their in-law to whom they had sold the land. And l have said that l cannot re-buy or compensate anybody. If you have collected money from your in-law, then you need to go and refund the money or you look for another land for him. So, that is for the first part of the land. The second part of the land from Perpetua, honestly l don't know what their claim is. I hear them saying something like an oral lease. Is there anything like an oral lease of land? They should be able to provide tangible evidences that they leased this land. Nobody was paying them land rent. For more than 40 years they (Perpetua and family) owned that land, no encumbrances until they sold it to me. What can be clearly understood from this whole thing is that these very persons instigating this matter are the one who claims he is a lawyer, Barrister Chukwudi Nnamani, and another person, one Clement Ugwuanyi, who describes himself as "Dr" who never went beyond secondary school, but he's parading himself as "Dr", claiming that he is a human rights activist. In actual fact, they are hungry individuals who are basically looking for a way to extort innocent land buyers. Like l said earlier, these guys are just into land grabbing business and l have all the evidences.
Question: Are law enforcement agencies aware of these land-grabbing squabbles and altercations and allegations? Has it been reported to the police, for instance?
Yes! They have called the police in who came and arrested my workers working on the land. When we got to the police, the police Area Commander at Udenu Local Government Area attended to us. They wrote to the police that l was pursuing them with guns. The Area Commander at Udenu Local Government Area asked them for evidences, for witnesses and all that. He then dismissed the case as a false allegation and concluded that this is a land matter and that police does not get involved in land matters. He also advised them that having provided no evidence that they owned the land, the Area Commander asked them to go to court and prove their case. Instead of doing that, they went to the Police Zonal Command, Zone 13 in Ukpo, Anambra state, to submit the same petition. The police in Zone 13 is currently investigating this case. However, to avoid being subjudice, this case is currently in court. I have taken it further. I have written a petition to the Commissioner of Police in Enugu state for the protection of my life because they are threatening to kill me. And for the protection of my properties. I have also written to the Inspector General of Police for the same purpose because these guys are sending people to attack my workers on that land every night and everyday. So, both the IG of police, the Enugu state Commissioner of Police and Zone 13 Ukpo, Anambra state are equally looking into it. The Zone 13 is looking at their petitions. We have gone for interviews. It's an ongoing case. Having done this, l have also taken the advice of the Area Commander by going to court to show that l truly own the land. If I'm a land grabber, l won't go to court. I will use brute force and have my way. You grab land by force. You won't think of going to court. I have actually gone to court. They should meet me there. I have my evidences.
Question: What are your community elders and traditional ruler doing about resolving this land impasse?
The most interesting part of the story is that the three villages that own the land have now come out two days ago (Monday ,August 28, 2023) to state that the land belonged to three of us, that is, the three community brothers of Umuhu, Umuamushi and Umugadu that make up Umuhunato. And currently, they've reported it to the Igwe (traditional ruler) of the community who is looking into that claim. Number one. The land does not belong to them. They are land grabbers who are looking for innocent people to extort. This is their business in that community. If they cannot extort you, they will blackmail you. What they are doing right now is blackmailing. The case is already in court. Police at the various level is looking into it. Your news medium (Nigerian NewsLeader Newspaper) can even interview the Area Commander of Udenu Local Government Area to obtain your facts and confirm my own account of the story to you. They have been going round media organizations to get them to publish falsehood about me. But my lawyers are responding to whatever defamatory, libelous and cyber stalking implications of such one sided publication. It is very unprofessional. They even went as far as saying that my father was killed by a deity! Can you imagine that? Your news medium (Nigerian NewsLeader Newspaper) and the Vanguard Newspaper are the only news mediums so far that have contacted me to hear my own side of the story before going to press. That is professionalism, if you ask me. So, they would have to court and prove their claims. My pictures are being circulated here and there without my permission. Of course, these things are targeted at ensuring that they bring me to disrepute in the eye of my organization and possibly get me relieved of my job. I am a philanthropist, and they said so. I don't know about that. Mine is that l am one of the highest contributors in the Catholic Church in my Community, Idi-Opi, Nsukka. In terms of the church building there, l am basically like the man in charge of the project. I am an Engineer, though not a civil Engineer based on my experience. I am a sales manager for my organization for West and Central Africa. I am a community leader. In fact, the electrification that went to my community was done by me. l provide for my community people. Every Christmas, l share rice to them including this guy's mother. During COVID-19, l shared money to all of them. I often grade roads for them during the dry season. Even the borehole in my community, l was the one that rehabilitated it with the support of other persons. Just last month, a tanker truck fell at the Ahor market area of Opi-9th Mile Corner Road and which brought down the electric installation, l and one other person singlehandedly restored that electricity for the community. So, what l do for the community is immeasurable and so humongous that if it is just one plot of land in question, l should be able to afford it. I have no reason to start grabbing land. What you see here is envy and jealousy and pull-him-down syndrome. But they have failed and they will continue to fail!
Question: The name of one Barrister Onyeke was mentioned in the whole land-grabbing saga. Who is this person and what is his role?
Barrister Onyeke is an old lawyer from Opi Nsukka. He took my community (Umuhunato) land. This land is sharing the same boundary as the one l bought. That particular land, my father, because of The excesses of the prison wardens that were brought to the land by Onyeke, led to my father asking questions about why the land was given to him in the first place. We realized that the land was given to him for no reason. Our fathers who leased the land to him said they did so just for farming. They said, as customary, he was supposed to kill a goat and cook for them which at a point he never did. My people said the land was too much and there was no good reason for which the land was given to him. The reason he is presenting is false. The investigation now showed that the reason he gave in the forged lease agreement was false. The lease agreement itself was also false. While two persons have agreed to give him the land, he wrote eight persons and those people denied getting involved. He even used a dead man's name to write the agreement. And then he stated that the land was leased to him for 9,999 years. So my father and the Umuhunato community said no he has to return the land. The case started until such a time when he went and connived with some members of the community. My uncle was even killed in the process and some members of the community he was able to buy to his side, and whom he connived with went and forged another deed of assignment which was also forged because some people who are still living today clearly signed. So the question now is: how could you sign for almost eight persons, most of whom were people living in the village? Are you signing for the person because they traveled to kafanchan or because they can't sign? If they can't sign, can't they thumbprint? We realized that those documents were forged. My father was in court with him (Lawyer Onyeke) at about the time that the judge asked them to go for a peaceful resolution but he didn't come to my father to comply with the judge's directive, instead, he started to forge a deed assignment, saying that he is converting the leasehold into freehold in 1999 and that he is returning part of the land. My father went for an Appeal in Court and of course, this case is still a court matter.
Question: Your accusers also alleged that you brought soldiers and thugs to molest them. Right or wrong?
Anyway, the soldier they mentioned was my classmate who may have visited my site. Thank God they confirmed that the soldier was my classmate and from the same community as me. He is a friend from Opi. All of us are from Opi, Nsukka. The soldier came to see my site. He has the right to visit his friend in his site. I did not arrange for any soldier to molest anybody. I am not a military man. I don't have that power and neither do l have the power to allocate soldiers. I didn't bring any soldier to intimidate anybody. They are the ones who were sending thugs to my site every day and night to beat up my workers and destroy things. On Tuesday night (this week), they sent thugs there who broke the car windscreen of one of my workers. Same Tuesday, in the morning, they went with a group of thugs in two vehicles to attack the place. What l am telling you now, l have evidences for it because l'm not around the community, but my workers were sending me details of everything going on there. I am trying to investigate those who they are using to do this. On Monday night too (this week, August 28, 2023) they brought thugs who came in about four motorcycles and attempted to attack my boys, my workers, who live in the boys quarter that l built on that land. The boys heard their noise and ran away. The attackers even left behind their hammers with which they came to destroy things. So, the other night, they came again and used their hammer to destroy part of the fence and ran away. They are the ones going about with thugs coming to look for me to kill. But let's be clear, these people are my home brothers but they are failures in their respective life endeavors and they have resorted to extortion, blackmailing, character assassination and looking for who to obtain money from through blackmail. This blackmail will never work because l am a clean person. I work for an international organization. You know what it means to work for an international organization and l have risen in position there. NNL.
