An Oil worker with Agip Oil & Gas, one Nnaemeka Mmadu, has been involved in desperate acts of land-grabbing and intimidation in Umugadu village, Ezama Idi Opi, a bordering village to his own, and even in his own Umuhu village, Nsukka LGA, Enugu State.
This was disclosed in a statement from the Umugadu Village signed by Barrister Jeremiah Chukwudi Nnamani, on behalf of the villagers.
Background
The people of Umugadu, and of course all Ezama, are shocked by the change of attitude they have noticed in Mr. Mmadu since he began to work in an oil company and to make money. He has been intimidating and hectoring the villagers, in most cases, trying to take their land, instigating and fueling disputes, disregarding the resolutions of elders and hiring armed thugs and members of law enforcement to harass and terrorize his many victims.
“We do not know what to do again. He will always tell you that you can do nothing and that he has enough money to deal with you. All I know is that we are not going to run away from this village for anybody. He is not the first to make money and he won’t be the last,” one of the villagers had said on a condition to remain anonymous.
IN the latest of such acts, Mr. Mmadu, our reporter gathers, is attempting to take a piece of communal land which belongs to the people of Umugadu, one of the three villages in Umuhu-nato, Idi Opi.
As can be gleaned from a lawsuit in respect of the matter, now pending before the Nsukka High Court in the Enugu Judicial Division, with the suit number: N/574/2023, and filed by six plaintiffs on behalf of Umugadu namely: One Okenyi Amaechi, Ugwuanyi Francis, Dr. Ugwuanyi Clement, Barr. Emeka Nnamani, Joel Eze and Barr. Jeremiah Chukwudi Nnamani, with of course Nnaemeka Mmadu and one Mrs. Perpetual Ugwu named as defendants, Mmadu appears to have instigated Perpetual Ugwu to allegedly sell him a communal land knowing full well that the land belongs to the people of Umugadu, Ezama, Idi Opi, and not Perpetual, the purported vendor.
“It is not the case of buying land which has issues because you did not know all the facts. Though, he is not a member of this village, he knew everything about the land. The woman would not have attempted what she did, that is assuming she actually did it, if he did not instigate her,” said Chukwudi Nnamani, Nnewi-based legal practitioner who is named as a plaintiff in the suit now before Nsukka High Court.
The land being disputed is part of a larger portion of Ukwala-Ugwu of Umugadu, which shares common boundary in the west with another piece of land given to one Barrister Onyeke by the ancestors of the plaintiffs in 1973. The ancestors of the plaintiffs, for being public-spirited, conceded the portion to all Umuhunato in 1974; to be given to Barr. Onyeke, popularly known as Lawyer Onyeke, in exchange for his legal services rendered to a native of Umuhu who ran into trouble with the law around 1974.
Lawyer Onyeke is the first person to qualify as a lawyer in Opi, a community in Nsukka Local government area. When he began to practice, the villagers who could not afford his professional fees often made him gifts of land in exchange for his services.
That was the case with the land the ancestors of plaintiffs conceded to Umuhunato to be used as payment for his services. The transactions, if it should be so called, was evidenced by a legal instrument executed between Lawyer Onyeke and the elders of Umugadu who owned the land before the incident of 1974.
As time went on, there arose a concern that the portion of land given to Lawyer Onyeke by Umuhunato was too large. The youth of Umuhunato approached Mr. Onyeke over the land. Out of rare magnanimity, Onyeke agreed to give back a part of the land to Umuhunato in 1999.
They executed another agreement to serve as evidence for the latter transaction. Anger over the portion of land thus retained by lawyer Onyeke, as we would later gather, made Nnaemeka Madu to invade another of the plaintiffs’ land, now a subject of fierce dispute and litigation.
The Land in dispute
The elders of Umugadu gave the disputed land to one Augustine Ugwu, late husband to Perpetual Ugwu, the woman named as second defendant in the suit, in accordance with their ancient customs and tradition. The land was given to Augustine Ugwu essentially for farming purposes.
His own side of the bargain was to pay tribute to the people of Umugadu every year as he continued to farm the land. Late Augustine fulfilled the customary rites and continued to pay tribute even though he defaulted a couple of times.
That was how the matter stood for a long period of time. Beginning with the historic Ebonyi Nnamani, all the elders who were part of the discussion are now dead.
However, their descendants continued to uphold the relationship and the oral lease agreement with Augustine Ugwu, even repeatedly writing him whenever he defaulted in paying up his tribute. Even after Agustine Ugwu of blessed memory appointed one Ogidi Vincent to administer his interest in the land, this condition never stopped.
“I think this problem started after I declined to join Nnaemeka Mmadu to make trouble with lawyer Onyeke and his family”, Barr. Chukwudi Nnamani told our reporter. Mmadu, principal defendant in the suit, had called Barr. Nnamani telling him that there is no reason their family should continue to allow Lawyer Onyeke to hold the portion of land their ancestors gave him.
His reason was that the lawyer is now very old and cannot fight them, especially as he is from another part of the community. Mmadu was so hellbent on fighting to retake the land given to Onyeke that he offered Nnamani various mouthwatering inducements to endorse the idea and join him.
Nnamani maintained his ground, telling him that he cannot disregard and dishonor a pact or covenant entered into by his long-dead ancestors. Mmadu’s hunger for land was then joined with wounded pride.
He then swore that since Nnamani declined to join him in fighting Lawyer Onyeke over the land given him, he would invade and take other land belonging to the Umuagdu people. Nnamani did not at that time think that he was going to make good his threat.
Mr. Mmadu’s anger and war are legion, as further finding from our reporter reveal. There are three villages in Umuhunato, Ezama, Idi Opi where, as we noted earlier, all the parties, both plaintiffs and defendants hail—to wit; Umuhu, Umugadu and Umuamamushi, nevertheless, they own land differently.
It happens, by accident of history, that Umugadu, the more particular village of the plaintiffs, is the smallest in population but enjoys ownership of the land at the choicest location. This situation has fueled envy and resentment, now manifest in Mmadu’s activities.
The situation has, however, been like that since nobody who is alive nine hundred years ago can remember. Mmadu who hails more particularly from Umuhu is no longer happy with the advantage Umugadu have over land.
He is reportedly mobilizing young people from his own Umuhu with an aim to disturb the age-old status quo and runs a WhatsApp platform for this purpose.
“We cannot say what has become of him. He behaves like he is suddenly possessed by unreasonable inclination or even spirit, “one of our sources said.
Trying to take the land in dispute, Mmadu first tried peaceful approaches. Instigating Perpetual Ugwu, wife of late Augustine Ugwu who held the land in customary lease for farming purposes, if you remember, the widow approached the principal owners of the land in Umugadu and offered to buy it outrightly off the village.
Nnaemeka Mmadu himself had offered to buy the land, again approaching the owners in Umugadu and even approaching important people in Idi Opi. Despite several meetings, they failed to reach any meaningful or positive agreement.
“We were surprised when the land was surveyed and beacons planted around it. We dismantled the beacons and disclaimed the activities in a newspaper publication. The next thing we saw was that Mmadu entered the land and began to cut down economic trees and to heap sand and stone”, said one of the plaintiffs.
Mmadu then began to intimidate the plaintiffs. Some time on the 17th of August, 2023, Mmadu made attempt to roust them, invading their homes at ungodly hours with a collection of thugs and military boys.
In a series of intimidatory and unlawful activities, one Raymond Chononso Eze, an army recruit and classmate of Mmadu has been a willing right-hand man. It was he who has ensured the “militarization” of the land in dispute preventing any service of court process or entrance by the plaintiffs while the land is hurriedly being developed.
It makes one wonder whether the law empowers the army to dabble in civil disputes and even if it does, the authorization Raymond Eze got for his manifest illegal activities and from which superior military authority.
“I think Mmadu is just being like his father. His father was a notorious trouble maker. Everybody knew him for that. It is sad that his son is taking after him. People even say that a deity killed his father because of something like this,” said one of our sources who begged not to be named.
The matter is now pending before the High Court but people are wondering why some so-called well-to-do members of society prefer asserting their affluence, fomenting trouble and intimidating others to working for community progress and development.
Signed: Barr. Jeremiah Chukwudi Nnamani
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