By Ijeoma Umeh
The Edo State Private Properties Protection Committee resumed its sitting on Monday, May 15, 2023, in Government House, Benin City, determined as ever, to deplete the number of cases that kept piling on land grabbing and related matters.
The Committee, headed by Hon. Justice Alero Edodo-Eruaga(Retired) had 29 cases to hear yesterday alone, including fresh commencements and reports on outcome of several investigations being carried out by police Investigative teams attached to the Committee.
While the Committee continued to make deliberate efforts and inroads through mediation in land disputes in Edo communities with a view to restoring peace and harmonious living among the people, one would also draw lessons on the frighteningly clandestine attachment of people to landed property all across the communities.
For land disputes, death of witnesses does not in any way end the feud. There will always be heirs to continue.
While pursuing to reclaim property or defend their complicit roles in the trespass and acquisition of legitimate properties of others, many of the locals cared less about life, nor the filial, fleeting benefits derived from the unending struggle to hold on to even that which was not theirs in the first place.
This writer had often regarded the Honourable Justice and her team as magicians because of the way they exacted truth from the mouths of even elderly men, many of whom would hitherto swear by the grave of their ancestors that they owned the land and everything in it and would struggle to the very end to preserve or continue in their vice-like grip on people’s lawful acquisition and inheritances. However, the end often justified the means. When they lost their grip after the Committee had done its thorough work, they still looked back like the Agama lizard and nodded that they had, after all, fought a good fight!
You will be disappointed if you expected guilt from a man who grabbed land for survival!
They were old, but agile in heart, and never cared if tomorrow would come! Often times, it never came.
Cases abound when, reading contents of petitions made by either respondents or Petitioners, the stark realization would dawn before the Committee that most of the witnesses had passed on, these were men who had earlier walked into the Committee’s Investigative chambers to make statements, some in their handwriting, a few aided by their family members. They took ill, they died, and their struggles continued.
The roll call was often an emotional moment for the Committee when the Hon.Justice Alero Edodo-Eruaga would be mentioning the names of witnesses to know if they appeared for hearing of cases involving them only for one unwavering voice to keep responding, “He don late, he don late, he has since been buried.”
In one particular case, the witnesses, except one who was at large, were deceased, and the only survivor was incapacitated by age, stowed away in a far community where he would enjoy peace till his last moment, yet his children continued, undaunted, in the struggle to reclaim or defend the excesses of their forebear!
It’s a vicious circle, and so in particular for many of the youths especially those who may not have any other means of livelihood; to these ones, land is the new gold, whether in a remote rain forest or in an emerging and sprawling new town or community.
To these ones, land is worth dying for.
Now, how does the death of witnesses stall the progress of cases before the Committee whose task is cut out for it?
It is simple: the survivors continued without baiting an eye, the Committee is often lucky for there are often several accomplices.
For some families, land grabbing appears to run in their DNA, worth mentioning is a particular case of an Odionwere and his son whose names have become household names among cases heard by the Committee on daily basis.
Several elders like that Odionwere also abound in many homesteads. A case also comes to mind of an elder in Aruogba village whose alias has become a symbol of land contestations, and he appears to have no qualm about it. In fact, he appeared to relish it when he’s being hailed as a major in community land deals.
However, the Edo State Private Properties Protection Committee would humble any land grabber.
In no particular order, here is a snippet of the character of distinguished members of the Committee: from the gentle, prodding gaze of the Honourable Justice Alero Edodo-Eruaga who is a master strategist in using subtle words in engaging with people and like a cleric making an altar call, speaking passionately to them on the vanity of causing unrest in the community where they live just because of land, then, meticulously getting to the root of a matter and stealthily dispensing justice; then imagine being quizzed by, and enduring the fiery vituperations, of AIG Austin Agbonlahor (Retired) whose experience as a fine police officer is generously being deployed in engaging people in steaming interrogations that leave land grabbers rattled and willing to submit, or encountering Chief Osaro Idah who is the scarecrow of virtually everyone from the communities who know him and who knows that the Chief is versed in the hierarchies of traditional titles and order in the communities and that he clearly understood their modus operandi…to the extent that Enigie, Odionwere, Okaeghele…they all respected the Chief and would hardly speak out of contest when he is at a sitting, then to Nosa Edo-Osagie Esq, Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Edo State Branch who, albeit rarely engaged in long conversations, would look out for legalities in people’s body language and demure and would tell the Hon Justice his modest and often unmistakable truth about his perception: “My Lord, I perceive that the Respondent is unwavering in his position, not to give up on the land,” or ESV (Elder) Julius Osayi Uhunamure who, like a good detective, intently critiqued each document tendered by parties in evidence and told them to their faces where they had erred, or Dr Ayewoh who hardly minced words in expressing before community people his amazement over the boldness to covet other people’s property, and Otokunrin Oshireku Esq, the diligent Secretary of Committee and State Counsel who brings wholesome orderliness to the line up of cases by his expertise in the handling of petitions; assuredly, this Committee clearly cannot be taken for a ride!
In one of the 29 cases that were heard yesterday, the Enogie, before he passed, had made statements alluding that he did not know the petitioner who had alleged that the Enogie had sold his land to another.
Now, the Committee had requested all parties to appear before it in the next hearing, and who else would that be when the Enogie had gone to join his ancestors?
The Committee had no qualms in directing the police team to get the deceased Enogie’s son, himself an Executive in the community and prominent in land deals while his father held the forte as Enogie.
For the Committee, no stone would be left unturned in ensuring the end of the era of brazen land grabbing in Edo State. Even the Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, earnestly desires so and looks forward to a conviction. The governor continues, relentlessly, to motivate the Committee to work harder.
It appears a conviction is not far in sight, for just recently, Mr Jolly Owie was arraigned on a 2-count charge of Unlawful Encroachment of Land and Sale of Land without authority.
His arraignment is in respect of a Parcel Of Land measuring 200ft by 200ft situated at Egbire Community belonging to one Mr Kingsley Ezeayim.
Although, he pleaded not guilty to both counts, his arraignment is a clear warning to potential land grabbers that jail is only a breath away.
The Committee continues sitting in Benin City.
