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As the controversy over due compensation to original landowners in the Abia Airport Project rages, residents of Umuezenta, Umuelenwa and Okpuala, all in Umuomainta Mbawsi, Isiala Ngwa North LGA of Abia State, have advised Abia State Government to investigate alleged fraudulent activities in the project, including adding of non-existent names in the list.
The villages also threatened to stop the contractor from further work on the site until the contractor provides a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, Land Agreement with Umuezenta, Umuelenwa and Okpuala villages, adding that lands for such a gigantic project is not supposed to be acquired without following due process.
Members of the communities also decried the alleged inclusion of Yoruba names in the list they spotted when they visited to confirm their names in Umuahia, stressing that the size of the land captured in the list is not also the actual size of their lands taken by the state government.
They asked the Abia state government to settle these issues once and for all by publishing all the names of landowners captured, names of the 3,500 people compensated according to the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Pastor Caleb Ajagba just as they demanded a publication of the actual size of land the government is taking from them.
Addressing newsmen on Tuesday while conducting journalists round the proposed airport runway site, the Village Head of Umuezenta and the Secretary, Nsulu Landowners Association, Echezolam Ukaumunna, said these demands have become necessary following the insincerity, propaganda that has heralded the Airport Project.
He reminded the State Government that they are not novices as these communities have engineers, estate surveyors, valuers who are well informed about sizes of airport runways in Nigeria and other parts of the world.
Ukaumunna challenged the Abia state government to also make public, the rate and their interpretation of adequate compensation, emphasizing that the government had before now assured of paying adequate compensation to landowners but unfortunately, they are yet to receive compensation that is commensurate with the size of their lands taken by the government.
He also stated that the inability of the government to pay full compensation to landowners who are mostly farmers, has also prevented them from securing farmlands elsewhere for farming activities, stressing that from Ubaha, Umuosu, among others, no new farms have been cultivated, which further makes their survival next year uncertain.
“From Ubaha, Umuosu and all Nsulu land, no new farms exist. They have used their bulldozers to raze everything down, despite seriously preaching that we should take up agriculture. How are we going to feed next year? The government said it will pay adequate compensation, up till now we haven’t seen anything. How do we survive next year? The government has remained insensitive to our cries.”
Ukaumunna revealed that the landowners can no longer fold their hands and watch the state government apply propaganda in the Airport Project, advising the government to return to the negotiation table and pay full compensation to landowners.
He stressed that until this is done, the landowners will stop the contractor from further working on the site, emphasizing the need for the state government to investigate alleged inclusion of non-existent names, arguing that names of landowners in Umuezenta, Umuelenwa and Okpuala should not exceed 1,500.
Corroborating this view, another landowner, who does not want her name in print, confirmed that when she visited Umuahia to confirm, her name was replaced with a Yoruba name, stressing that the size of her land taken, was not also captured.
She advised the State Government to be sincere in their handling of the Airport Project, maintaining that they do not have any other job apart from farming, saying, “Farming is all that gives us joy, and for the State Government to take our lands without proper compensation means that they want us to starve and die of hunger,”
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