The conflict over the disputed Enugu Golf and Lifestyle city, also known as Centenary city in the Enugu South local government area, has given rise to an unsolvable issue that is roiling the towns of Obeagu and Amechi-Uwani Awkunanaw.
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This time, the communities have hauled the Enugu State government, two senior officers of the Enugu State police command, and the estate’s developers, Private Estates International West Africa limited (PEIWA), before the National Assembly, complaining of what they described as ceaseless killings and incarceration of youths from the affected areas.
The two towns brought the National Assembly’s attention to their plight through separate appeals to the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions.
In the interest of justice, law and order, they made an urgent plea to the House to use its oversight function in resolving cases of senseless killings, ensure prosecution on police investigations into the killings of youths, and free others who have been imprisoned in various police and correctional facilities across the nation due to the land crisis in both communities.
The two communities had petitioned the Police Service Commission and the Enugu State police command on separate occasions regarding the misconduct of two senior police officers. They claimed that the officers had compromised their positions by working exclusively for PEIWA and helping the company to intimidate, harass, arrest, and seize their land in blatant opposition to the Nigeria Police’s operations.
The communities indicated that after all hope seemed to be gone due to the most heinous land grab frenzy, unlawful acquisition of their ancestral lands, and abhorrent demolitions carried out against them initially by PEIWA, they turned to the National Assembly as a last chance.
The communities lamented the gruesome murder of a police officer, Inspector Celestine Orodiovwe of the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) Annex, Enugu, in December 2021, who was investigating the land grabbing case they reported against “some hirelings of the PEIWA,” adding that between 2021 and 2022, the murder of Chidera Ogaba, Comrade Kelvin Ezeoha, Sunday Ngene of Obeagu, among others took place in same pattern, where hooded men were reportedly used to perpetrate the dastardly acts.
The Enugu State Police Command declined to comment when contacted about the development, but PEIWA’s Chamberlin Mbachu said that his company legally purchased the contested land from the Enugu State government in 2009.
