Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTDA) says it will on Wednesday demolish over 200 houses in Enugu Lifestyle and Golf City, otherwise known as Centenary City, in obedience to a court judgment.

ECTDA spokesman Gideon Eze told journalists on Tuesday in Enugu that the bulldozers were already on the ground to carry out the demolition.

Mr Eze said the authority was acting based on the judgement obtained by a developer, Private Estates International West Africa Limited (PEIWA), from the Enugu State High Court as the real owner of the land.

The estate developer acquired the large expanse of land, measuring 1097 hectares, during Governor Sullivan Chime’s administration.

Meanwhile, the owners of the land, Amechi and Obeagu communities in urban Enugu South local council, claimed that the developers, in concert with the ex-governor’s administration, annexed their ancestral land without consent.

Mr Eze said ECTDA had issued the last notice for demolition of the estates after a court order was given to resolve the protracted land dispute in which its Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) was revoked in 2019 by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s administration but was restored after litigation.

“Based on the court judgment, the owner of the estate has written to the agency to eject the occupants from the land. We gave them notice in July 2021 to vacate, but they refused. We are not aware of any court injunction stopping us from carrying out the planned demolition,” stated Mr Eze.

The government official said the agency was not into negotiating or resolving land disputes but was an enforcement agency carrying out its statutory function of restoring the city plan and removing property in contravention of the Enugu master plan.

The Amechi and Obeagu communities, which protested against the estate’s demolition, pleaded with ECTDA to shelve its planned demolition of over 200 houses on the land.

The communities, however, objected that they were not joined in the suit even when they applied, insisting that the ‘consent judgment’ between the state government and the private developer was a travesty of justice.

They maintained that the indigenous owners of the disputed land were barred from being parties in the litigation. The communities contended that since the initial 318 hectares of land mapped out for the permanent site of the old Anambra State University of Science and Technology, ASUTECH, in 1982 was no longer used for the purpose it was meant, the land should return to the communities.

The communities chanted songs with masqueraders and carried placards with inscriptions, ‘No going back in reclaiming our land’, ‘Enugu state government should know we have no other land and ‘We cannot run away from our home’.

Leader of the Ndiagu Amechi-Uwani Awkunanaw, Sunday Nnaji, maintained that all the buildings the ECTDA marked for demolition were their ancestral home which the government agency duly approved.

Mr Nnaji insisted that the state government had ulterior motives in its planned demolition of their native homeland.

On the other hand, the traditional ruler of the Obeagu Awkunanaw community, Mike Nnukwu, lamented his place would be affected by the demolition if the state government made good its threat.

(NAN)