By Ijeoma Umeh
Benin City – Encomiums were yesterday showered on the Edo State Government for setting up the Edo State Private Properties Protection Committee, described by many as Peace Advocates.
While sitting to hear 28 cases involving land grabbing and related disputations yesterday, Thursday, March 23 in Government House, Benin City, the Committee headed by Hon Justice Alero Edodo-Eruaga (Retd), was described by some Petitioners and Respondents as being in the frontline of advocacies towards restoring peace and harmonious living in Edo communities.
The Committee has overtime recorded landmark resolutions in addressing issues of land grabbing and in methodically guiding parties towards relinquishing vice-like grips on people’s properties, and enabling aggrieved parties get justice.
Several of the cases involving land grabbing which came up for hearing yesterday were reported by both Investigative Police Teams, Petitioners and Respondents themselves as being resolved, with financial settlements and compensations being paid as part of terms of settlement.
“The Respondents were appealing for me to take the sum of #1m as settlement, but I am asking for more…” a Petitioner, Sunday Igbinedion, stated yesterday in one of the cases that were reported for settlement.
Notable names of individuals from all walks of life keep popping up, including corporate organisations, like Christ Embassy, NABTEB, communal people, the nobel, the elites, farmers, poor rural householders who suffer encroachment due to fast spate of development of the hinterland swooping in on them, every day people which cases came up for hearing yesterday, like every other day, while a few new cases were on commencement, all seeking to get justice over land grabbing.
This development, no doubt reemphasizes the confidence the people have come to repose in the Committee, for which parties involved continue, on daily basis, to express gratitude to the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration.
Michael Uwa Ehizogie, a rural farmer from Okhuoromi Community told this writer: “If not for this Committee which recovered my landed property grabbed in Okhuoromi, my own community, I would have been dead by now due to hypertension because that is the only tangible achievement I have made as a low income earner who worked and retired from service over ten years ago. May God bless the Edo State Government and keep this Committee going unhindered.”
Madam Helen Ohonba whose son also recovered his land measuring 200 feet by 200 feet in Obazagbon Community also showered encomomiums on the state government and the Committee.
“This Committee is a legacy Committee by this government. God will bless Obaseki and all the members for standing by the truth that they have investigated and seen for themselves. Truth and Peace always prevail here.”
Standing against oppression in what ever guise, the Committee takes certain sure steps in leading parties to accepting their faults and without a single canon let loose, conceding to enter into peaceful resolutions, often backed by the law, with Resolutions signed at the Multidoor Court.
While it guarantees parties the leeway to settling their matters through the alternative dispute resolution mechanisms which are offered, the Committee also encourages those who are not satisfied with its processes and resolutions to go to regular court to seek justice.
Oftentimes however, parties to land disputes opt for settlement at the level of the Committee because for them, the trajectory for getting accelerated hearing and justice, is certain.
During the sitting yesterday, the Honourable Justice and Chairman of the Committee addressed the issue she described as “forum shopping,” and discouraged parties from getting involved in it when the case between Linda Taofik and one Mr Fred, also known as Canada Man, came up for hearing.
The Petitioner had also sued the Respondent to court while the case pf encroachment into her property was equally filed for hearing at the level of the Committee. To assure the Petitioner that the Committee does not compel parties to remain at the Committee in seeking redress, the Committee however advised the Petitioner, Linda Taofik, to either continue with the court, which is a higher constituted body, or proceed with the Committee.
The Honourable Justice also spoke on backlog of cases at the Committee, stating that, “There is no time we do not have backlog of cases here, but we try to deliver on our mandate.”
The Petitioner did not wait for the date of adjournment to be given before she posited she would withdraw her case from court and proceed at the level of the Committee. According to her, “I was frustrated when they encroached into my land, that was why I equally sued them to court. My husband and I were beaten and bruised over the land matter, to the extent that we had to leave the Community where we lived, but I brought the matter here because I want you to help me recover my land. Here, I see light at the end of the tunnel,” she stated.
The Edo State Private Properties Protection Committee continues sitting in Benin City.