*Disputed property is my inheritance from my Father, Stephen Nyegwa claims
“This person says his name is Nyegwa Stephen. He is a notorious land grabber. He doesn’t not have any verifiable means of income. All he does is to sell, resell, bulldoze and snatch people’s properties from them.
“He came into this estate when we all were still inscribing, see all the inscriptions on the wall….
“He arrested some persons from these properties and took them to Rumuokoro Police Station on no basis.
By Olawale Lamina
Concerned landlords in Iroko,Cenamon and Lemon Drives Cedarwood Estate, on SARS Road in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State have accused the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, of Special Area Rumudomaya, (Rumuokoro Police Division) of aiding and abetting an alleged land grabber, Stephen Nyegwa, a resident of Rumuagholu community, to forcefully take possession of property belonging to them for years.
Speaking to journalists on the matter, one of the landlords in the estate, who is a legal practitioner, Gbenga Oladapo (Esq) particularly pointed an accusing finger on the Divisional Police Officer of the Special Area in Rumudomaya, of ‘fraternizing’ with the alleged land grabber to permit authorize his officers to act as Police bailiff, ( a manager, overseer or custodian) who was said to have facilitated inscriptions of fraudulent demolition orders on the estate landlord’s property without a valid court judgement.
“We are being invaded by a gang, a cabal of land grabbers from Rumuaorlu community,”stated Oladapo.
He mentioned the arrowhead of the crisis and his alleged schemes, “This person says his name is Nyegwa Stephen. He is a notorious land grabber. He doesn’t not have any verifiable means of income. All he does is to sell, resell, bulldoze and snatch people’s properties from them.
“He came into this estate when we all were still inscribing, see all the inscriptions on the wall….
“He arrested some persons from these properties and took them to Rumuokoro Police Station on no basis.
“I called him on phone and said , ‘did you get any judgement?’ he said yes. I said, where is the judgement, because I am pricy to many of the judgements…
While relating his personal experience based on threats to his life, he alleged that the alleged land grabber organized his boys who surrounded him with guns, machetes and cudgels to attack him and called for sanction of the police officers who were complicit in the matter saying, “He goes about with police escorts How will the police be protecting him against law abiding citizens. We are helpless, let the IG and the entire world come to our aid.”
Mr. Oladapo appealed to the Inspector General of Police to immediately redeploy the DPO of Rumudomaya Special Area, for having compromised and allowed his actions to negatively impact the health condition of some landlords in the area.
He stated further that, since the glitch over the estate property started, some of the landlords had been hospitalized, due to development of high blood pressure, as they could not contain the shock which the development foisted on them.
A petition by the estate landlords, ( a copy of which was made available to The Pinnacle Times),under the aegis of Cedarwood Garden Landlords Association, off Celestine Omehia- Road ( also known as SARS Road, Port Harcourt) through the Grey-Edge Attorneys, Emmanuel Chambers,was written to Inspector General of Police and copied to Police Service Commission, PSC, Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Chairman, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters Executive Secretary National Human Rights Commission, the Director State Security Service, Abuja, Amnesty International and the Press accused the DPO of aiding alleged land grabber,Stephen Nyegwa.
The petition titled: Petition of Impending Threat of Demolition of Property Based on Non-existent Court Order, Defacing of Private Properties and Gates with Fake Demolition Order, Threat of Kidnap, Gross Impunity by Policy and Action Capable of Causing Serious Breakdown of Law and Order( made by the Landlords Association), against Stephen Nyegwa and His Cohorts, and the DPO and Serving Police Officers of Special Area Divisional Headquarters Rivers State Nigeria.
Other landlords also reacted to the alleged land grabbing issue expressed their shock and unbelief. One of them, Chinedu Igweze, whose property was marked for demolition at Cinnamon Drive, stated that for the past three days, Mr. Nyegwa and a police detachment came into the estate to mark people’s property for demolition under pretext of a court judgement. Mr. Igweze insisted that there is “no court judgement anywhere.”
Igweze explained further that,’‘One of our landlords tried to inquire from them the reason of invasion of the estate and excavation of people’s land with intent to take over such property, he was arrested in the process and taken to Rumuokoro Police Station.
“The DPO checked the said court papers ,there was no judgement whatsoever declaring Nyegwa as the owner of the property.
“Surprisingly, we came back to the estate and saw Mr. Nyegwa with detachment of Police officers from Rumuokoro Police Division still excavating people’s land and taking over people’s property.”
Another property owner, Rita Ibifaka, corroborated what others said informing journalists that she has been living in the same estate for a very long time.
She expressed her frustrations over the matter, stating that, “They (land grabbers) gave us seven days to quit our property after marking it for demolition.
“I am calling on the Rivers State Government and the leadership of Obio/Akpor LGA to come to our aid.
A petition by the estate landlords, ( a copy of which was made available to The Pinnacle Times),under the aegis of Cedarwood Garden Landlords Association, off Celestine Omehia- Road ( also known as SARS Road, Port Harcourt) through the Grey-Edge Attorneys, Emmanuel Chambers,was written to Inspector General of Police and copied to Police Service Commission, PSC, Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Chairman, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters Executive Secretary National Human Rights Commission, the Director State Security Service, Abuja, Amnesty International and the Press accused the DPO of aiding alleged land grabber,Stephen Nyegwa.
The petition titled: Petition of Impending Threat of Demolition of Property Based on Non-existent Court Order, Defacing of Private Properties and Gates with Fake Demolition Order, Threat of Kidnap, Gross Impunity by Policy and Action Capable of Causing Serious Breakdown of Law and Order( made by the Landlords Association), against Stephen Nyegwa and His Cohorts, and the DPO and Serving Police Officers of Special Area Divisional Headquarters Rivers State Nigeria.
Stating his own part of the story, in connection with allegations preferred against him, the alleged land grabber, Engr. Stephen Nyegwa denied being a land grabber and claimed that the disputed property belonged to his late father and now his inheritance.
Nyegwa said: ” I am a good citizen of Obio/Akpor LGA. The land is a family land which belonged to our forefathers precisely Aker. The land was a subject of litigation between my father HRH Samuel Kinikawon and his cousin Apostle.
*My father took Apostle to high court. Apostle won the case at High court.My father not satisfied with the Judgement of the high court,proceeded to Appeal court where the justices of Appeal court set aside the Judgement of the High court and ordered the Chief Judge to re- assign the case to another High court in Rivers State.”
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Mr Nyegwa disclosed that whlle the case was in court, Apostle sold the lands to people and his late father then, informed the people that the property was subject of litigation but some of them told Apostle not to be worry that they are very connected.
He alleged that Apostle has sold 95 percent of the family land and the ones he is taking charge of in the estate is just five percent that belongs to his late father and by inheritance him.
Mr Nyegwa exonerated the DPO of Special Area Rumudomaya of any complicity adding that the Police seen with him is not for evil but Police officers attached to his registered estate company.
He accused his accusers of conniving with his father’s brother to grab his land.
The Spokesperson for the Rivers State Police Command,SP Grace Iringe Koko when contacted, promised to get back to our reporter but was yet to do so as at press time.
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