By Ijeoma Umeh
When disputing families, neighbors, friends and residents from various communities in Edo State stepped into the “people’s court” headed by Hon. Justice Alero Edodo-Eruaga (Retd) to speak to their petitions bordering on land grabbing and related disputes, they often appeared with the fury of vengeance deeply etched on their brows.
Even those determined to defend illegalities and irregularities come into the arena fuming with the air of victimization!
However, at the end of hearing, haughty shoulders are humbled while creases of meanness stamped on brows are smoothened to square up with reality!
Miracles, this writer even calls it magic, happen on daily basis at the Edo State Private Properties Protection Committee sitting in Government House, Benin City.
Before this Committee, land grabbers would hardly sustain arguments hewed on the foundation of falsehood.
Documents tendered in evidence are subjected to surgical instruments, critiqued with laser lens, and words said by witnesses are dissected into fragments and pruned over and over by the Retired Justice and her team, discerning members of the Committee who are masters in the dismemberment of cantankerousness.
The interrogations may not be loud or verbose, but the pace of logical reasoning squares up with the effrontery to stand up and lie over chivalry.
It is therefore not strange to see great men and women, even people of nobility, cowtow to the preening eyes of the Honourable Justice and her team, many making subtle confessions and succumbing to terms of settlement.
Human consciences are pricked to submission; sibling rivalry and long suffering enemity over land ownership are amicably settled and tears of joy are freely shed as warm embraces are shared!
Truth is, if you cannot recover “your” property at the Edo State Private Properties Protection Committee sitting in Government House, Benin City, then be rest assured, it was not yours in the first place! You can take that to the bank!
Here, the Committee pushes for thorough investigations, daily imploring the investigative unit to match words with action.
Some parties ask for long or short adjournment to enable them settle their differences, and some hope the Committee would forget in the interregnum, but not this Committee. Its records are impeccable! “Recall that during the last hearing on the matter, you were directed to go and show the Petitioner the proposed new location, what is the situation now? ” The Honourable Justice would ask, taking some parties aback.
My Lord does not forget!
Nothing gets lost here; give or take, refunds for land trespassed or encroached on and illegally sold or transfered to another seal new deals for both Petitioner and Respondent as they agree right before the Committee on terms of settlement.
Several cases like that are recorded, where transfer of monies running into millions of Naira are done right there in the hall, before the steady, prying gaze of the Committee. No gun is pointed, no salvos are thrown, except for the deep stare of truth!
You may be a petitioner, but here, where the preponderance of evidence are weighty, Respondents sometimes also emerge as victims and the table turn. New statements are made and the Edo State Private Properties Protection Law 2021 suffices.
Relocation to new and unencumbered Plots of land for land seized are done with signatures appended by all parties involved under close scrutiny. Forget it, you cannot claim your neighbour’s land because Edo-GIS works in concert with the Committee. That organization is meticulous too. It will locate any land “lost” in the maze.
Again, don’t dare this Committee by going ahead to shun the Caveat banners and developing a land under contention. Physical Planning partners with the Committee under the same ecosystem. The Ministry of Physical Planning has beautiful sledge hammers!
Now, talking about signatures, you needed to see how the Committee exacts truth from screening signatures! Some parties are taken unawares and simply succumb when they are made to sign same signatures they had earlier denied on deeds of transfer. All is well that ends well!
Well, the essence of this article, with all the unintended puns, is not to chronicle woes and triumphs(the triumphs are loud anyway!) but to elucidate the point that indeed, something worth celebrating is happening in Edo State; something that rekindles hope in the minds of the people. No wonder Edo people have described the Committee as a legacy project of the Governor Godwin Obaseki Administration and continue to sue for its sustenance by succesive administrations in the state.
They should sustain it, lest the people crowd the courts with benumbing litigations! However, here, too, matters are charged to court when they come to a turn less head! Some of the cases emanating from the Committee are awaiting convictions in court.
Sitting continues in Benin City.
