Pastor Umo Eno, Honourable Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources, Akwa Ibom State.
By our reporter
The Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources, Pastor Umo Eno, has said the quest by government to reclaim a parcel of land in Ifa Ikot Okpon community, Uyo local government, is why he and his Ministry have come under negative media spotlight.
Pastor Eno in an interaction with journalists in Uyo, explained that those who encroached on the parcel of land acquired by government in Ifa Ikot Okpon, are the ones sponsoring negative media report against his Ministry in a bid to arm-twist the government to discontinue with ongoing efforts to reclaim the land.
“For me, there is no issues, government acquired a land at Ifa Ikot Okpon in 1991, paid all the compensations, I have the documents. The only mistake government made was that they did not take possession, in fact that is where Shelter Afrique would have been.”
“Of course the acquisition was done about 30 years, so over time there has been this encroachment and don’t forget that people didn’t know, but once that ring road was opened it’s like wow! This land is here.”
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The Commissioner said after his Ministry set up land review committee to reclaim all government lands, media attack on the Ministry and his person started immediately.
“We set up a land review committee, that committee said look there is government land here so that how we started going back to get the lands, that is when we discovered that people have sold the lands.
“We went to the village head and told him that your people are selling government land, the man said to me ‘Commissioner government has the land, some bad boys are selling the land I cannot stop them, but government has the instrument to take their land, I don’t want them to come and kill me’.”
Pastor Eno said the government wants to reclaim one part of the land called G-block which has not been encroached upon.
He said out of empathy, the government has decided that it will not demolish people’s houses outside the G-block.
“When government possessed that land in 1991, did you believe that in 2021, 30 years after, a Governor will come and look for that land? So going up there you are going against the tide because people have made livelihoods from there.”
“The Governor directed that we should reclaim those lands. We are not touching the part they have built houses even though some people feel we should demolish all the houses and reclaim the land. I don’t want to be part of those going to demolish people’s houses, and you will not have the courage to put a bulldozer to bring down people’s houses, then go back home and sleep well. People can do it, but I can’t do it.”
“The reason we are taking the G-block is that this is the part they did not sell, we’ve not gone to the part they sold.”
“Even though government has decided to be lenient, the only way the people who have been feeding fat on that land can fight back is to blackmail me, saying that I want to use it for hotel business and campaign office. Do you build campaign office? No, you don’t. You don’t site hotels anywhere, so what makes you think Ring Road is viable in terms of siting a hotel.”
“Note that government went and erected a fence on the land, one of them went and demolished the fence, removed government signpost and we reported it to the Police he was arrested, so he’s fighting back.”
The Commissioner said government has allocated the G-block to federal institutions including EFCC and JAMB.
