Stakeholders dismiss Abia govt claims of compensating 3,500 landowners for airport project

By Providence Ayanfeoluwa

Nsulu Stakeholders Forum, NSF, has expressed dismay and daze implicit a statement, credited to the Abia State authorities that astir 3,500 onshore owners affected by the runway of the Abia Airport task successful Nsulu, Isiala Ngwa North LGA, person received compensation, with assurances that outstanding payments volition beryllium settled erstwhile each indemnity certificates are completed.

The Abia State Government done the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Pastor Caleb Ajagba, had disclosed the compensation astatine the play during a fact-finding sojourn to the task site, alongside Commissioner for Lands and Housing, Mr. Chaka Chukwumerije; Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Mr. Matthew Ekwuribe; and the Airport Project Coordinator, Pastor Okorougo Aje.

Ajagba explained that the sojourn followed complaints from immoderate assemblage members who claimed they had not been paid. He clarified that astir cases of non-payment were owed to relationship issues oregon incomplete indemnity certificates, portion stressing that the authorities remained committed to honouring each agreements.

However, the Nsulu Stakeholders Forum, NSF, portion reacting done its Convener, Mazi Chigoram, said: “It is bittersweet that the Abia State authorities has decided to opt for propaganda arsenic a mode of resolving the Nsulu onshore substance that the Otti authorities is bent connected seizing without pursuing owed process.

“The substance is earlier the authorities High Court successful Okpuala Ngwa, which successful December past twelvemonth directed the authorities authorities not to instrumentality immoderate further measurement until the substance is heard and determined. The Abia State authorities has refused to obey the tribunal order. Another substance is pending earlier a Federal High Court sitting successful Abuja, arsenic the tribunal has adjourned till October 2, for judgement by the genuine onshore owners who are arguing:

*That the defendants without gathering mandatory information precedent to commencement of operation connected an airport, to wit, subjecting the projected tract to biology interaction appraisal and arsenic enjoined by the Environmental Impact Assessment Act [1992], is simply a cardinal breach of the instrumentality and frankincense unlawful and void, aforesaid being an enactment done successful breach of the Federal Republic of Nigeria extant laws.

*That the grant of the declaration for the Abia Airport task without subjecting the plan signifier and operation signifier of the task to an unfastened and competitory bidding process successful accordance with the Bureau of Public Procurement Act, 2007[otherwise BPP] is unlawful, void and of nary effect, aforesaid being an enactment done successful breach of extant laws Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“That the Federal Ministry of Environment failed successful discharging its obligations nether the instrumentality to behaviour an biology interaction appraisal connected the onshore aforesaid being an country prone to gully erosion, densely occupied by the claimants, ancestral homesteads, and different forms of biology problems that volition pb to extinction of claimants communities and repudiation of the situation and the eco-system.

“What is going connected is that the authorities authorities is mobilising enactment members and radical from communities whose lands are not successful the task country to deceive the satellite that compensation is being paid and that the radical are with them.

“Please, inquire the politician oregon immoderate of his agents, however overmuch are they paying for the land, the economical crops and trees, sources of drinking h2o they are closing, burial grounds and shrines of the radical they privation to instrumentality over, however overmuch are they paying?

“What authorities is doing present is to unit immoderate radical to motion indemnity forms, without immoderate mentation and fewer radical paid were paid arsenic debased arsenic N100,000 irrespective of the fig of plots that autumn wrong the supposedly airdrome area. Is that however compensation is paid without the radical knowing what is owed to them?

“It is unusual that the Otti authorities is successful a hurry to instrumentality implicit peoples’ onshore without waiting for the courts to determine connected the matters earlier them and without pursuing owed process. He should cognize that helium is not the archetypal politician and volition not beryllium the last. Other governments volition travel aft him and beryllium remainder assured that Nsulu radical volition conflict this lawsuit to the highest court.

“You not privation sack radical from their lone sources of survival, onshore and anticipation they we volition support quiet, we volition not. Our radical should not springiness successful to authorities lies and propaganda, it volition not work.

“We are not opposed to the air...