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Delta State commissioner, widow, Nwoko feud over land

By Owen Akenzua, Asaba
04 January 2018   |   4:19 am
Delta State Commissioner for Economic Planning, Dr. Kingsley Emu, is currently engulfed in a land dispute with a widow, identified as Mrs. Uju Nnalue and one Christopher Nwoko in Okpanam, near Asaba, the state capital.

Commissioner for Economic Planning, Dr. Kingsley Emu

Delta State Commissioner for Economic Planning, Dr. Kingsley Emu, is currently engulfed in a land dispute with a widow, identified as Mrs. Uju Nnalue and one Christopher Nwoko in Okpanam, near Asaba, the state capital.

Nnalue and Nwoko alleged that on December 22, 2017, Emu stormed the Christo Motel way, Ogbe Owelle Quarters, Okpanam, with police escorts, armed thugs and a bulldozer and personally supervised the demolition of Nnalue and Nwoko houses.

Nwoko said through his lawyers, Dumbili Chinonso Esq. that Emu approached him and Nnalue while they were building on their respective lands and instructed them to stop.

When they enquired why he wanted them to stop work, he claimed that the Nwabuoku family in Okpanam sold the land to him.

He further said the Nwabuoku family who are the owners of the land denied ever doing any business with Emu but that they only sold the said land to him and Nnalue.

He said the revelation infuriated the commissioner who stormed out of the site, promising to come and demolish the buildings on the land and that nothing would happen because he was a commissioner in the state.

They said: “We made several attempts to reach the commissioner so that he could produce the documents of the land, but instead, his boys called us to the site on December 22, 2017 and told us that the commissioner was on the land with a bulldozer.”

They also said they were afraid, as several hidden numbers started calling them to stay away from the land or risk losing their lives.

But in his reaction to the duo’s claims, Emu said: “I have certificates of occupancy (C of Os) to the lands, so they are my lands and I cannot fold my hands and watch my lands taken over by land grabbers, particularly Nwoko who has been begging me through one Fejiro to be paid for the forfeiture of the land because he knows the land does not belong to him.

“Three of us originally bought the land from the Nwabuokwu family of Okpanam, but Nwoko and the widow encroached, as they have no proof of ownership of the land and that was why I took a bulldozer to the land and got their buildings out of the way.”

He alleged that Nwoko and Nnalue had resorted to diabolical means to assume ownership of the lands, saying all sorts of strange objects had been deposited on the lands in a bid to scare away the real owner.

Emu was sacked from the administration of former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan for allegedly falling out with the former governor before Governor Ifeanyi Okowa returned him due to his closeness to the incumbent governor, who is said to be his godfather.

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