Chinedum Treasure
Members of the Okposieke family in Onitsha Ancient Kingdom has protested alleged refusal of the Onitsha Sports Club to abide by a federal government’s order to release the land on which the facility is situated to the family.
The legal tussle over the parcels of land located at G.R.A Onitsha, had lasted in court for over 12 years, with the Okposieke family going ahead to reclaim the lands, after the expiration of a 99-year lease.
Earlier this year, members of the sports club had accused an indigene of Onitsha, Barr Harold Ekwerekwu of trying to forcefully eject them out of the facility, destroying properties worth billions of naira on the land in dispute.
But addressing newsmen after the protest, the legal representative of the family, Barr Harold Ekwerekwu accused some influential members of the club of using police officers from Delta State to repossess the land, whose lease arrangement had elapsed and as such, reverted back to the rightful owners.
He revealed that immediately the land was released back to the family after the lease expired, they went into possession, but the leasee began to fight them, using all sorts of police, and thugs to intimidate the family.
He recalled how the family had issued several demands to the club, but they ignored everything.
Presenting certain documents to support his stance, Ekwerekwu said; “From these reports, and the police investigation reports, you can see clearly that the land belongs to Okposieke family, and other places the federal government released back to the family were recovered successfully, except for this particularly one, just because the land grabbers are there, wanting to take it by force.”
He said the lease agreement between the family and the colonial masters, who occupied the land was for 99 years, which he said expired in 2009.
According to him, in 2022, the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development issued an order directing the land users to surrender the leased land to the Okposieke family of Onitsha and an injunction restricting the police from forcefully entering the land.
“All kinds of mercenaries has been used against our family, including people from the park.
“And the frustrating part is that this matter has been settled at the office of the IGP monitoring team, where it was stated that everybody should maintain the status quo.
“We have all our documents, we have all the Certified True Copies of documents from the Federal government.
“I wonder why the Police is aiding such atrocity. They have used MOPOL 54 and 24 before, now using MOPOL 31 from Asaba to demolish our perimeter fencing,” he regretted.
The legal practitioner however denied the allegation by the Sports Club in August, that he brought armed thugs in odd hours to demolish the fence of the sports facilities, saying “Am the legal representative of the family.
“They always call Harold, Harold. Immediately we called them that we wanted to enter our land, they said we should go, and the family entered into the land, not me.
“The land belongs to the family under a leasehold, and nothing was destroyed on the land, and only the bushes and debris was what was cleared because it was vacant land.
“I wonder why they are dragging over a land they know does not belong to them, claiming they have a Certificate of Occupancy, when there is a lease subsisting, it cannot work.”
While urging all parties to maintain status quo, in line with a peaceful agreement with the police and the family in Abuja, other family members, including Edward Ekwerekwu and Valentine Ekwerekwu insisted that the family will pursue the case to a logical conclusion.
Efforts by our correspondent to reach the accused persons, including President of the Sports Club, Chief Dan Okafor was not successful as at time of filing the report.
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