Proposed market triggers tension in Enugu

Tension is building up in Umuonu autonomous community, Umuida, Enugu Ezike, Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area (LGA) of Enugu State. A proposed community market is spreading anxiety and fear in the are

While a section of the community and the local government authorities want the construction of the market, members of the Umuonoja Oyina clan, one of the nine families that own the communal land mapped out for the market project, are crying foul.

The family is accusing the chairman of Igbo-Eze North LGA, Comrade Uwakwe Ezeja, who hails from the community, of teaming up with some other people from the community to take over the land by force for selfish purposes, using the market project as a facade.

Uwakwe has denied the allegation. But members of the family insist that their inheritance from their forefathers was being taken away from them without proper consultation and discussion of terms. They want the state government to come to their aid.

An elder of the Umuonoja Oyina family, Sylvester Ekehja, a septuagenarian, who spoke to Daily Sun on the issue, said his family had been treated unjustly, apparently because his people were regarded as poor.

Other members of the clan, including Onyekachi Onuh, Okechukwu Eze, Onuh Godwin, Okechukwu Mamah and Nichodemus Ogbuja also shared this view.

The septuagenarian said the family’s economic crops were damaged with impunity, just as the large expanse of land they should bequeath to their children had been seized.

“The local government chairman and the Umuonu people have taken our family heritage without discussion. Is this right? When we heard about their plan, we thought it wasn’t true because the building of a market is not our main need in the community now. Is it because we have no power? We told them we don’t have any land to give out because we have young people who will build tomorrow, but they didn’t listen to us. They invaded the place and destroyed all our economic trees, palm trees, ugiri, kolanut, pears and even cash crops,” he said.

He wondered why those pushing for the building of the Umuonu market were in such a hurry; he also said that there might be other reasons for the desperation.

He stated that: “They sent vigilantes and bulldozers to clear everything we owned there. It was when they saw our resistance that they came to us for discussion. We asked them whether they would buy the land but they said no, that we would be given allocation for shops when the construction commences.

“There are so many markets in our community, including Orie Iyaa, Orie Akpatulu,  Orie Ogene and Nkwo Iyida. Many of the markets are undeveloped and underperforming. It would have been better if they had gone to boost any of the markets instead of starting a fresh one altogether while the ones mentioned are all half empty.

“The government, through the CSDP team, visited our community and asked us to name our priority needs. Among the things listed, which included water project, hospital and roads, the market got the lowest votes. We are not against development in any form for our community but, before you take somebody’s property, you must discuss and agree with that person.

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Ogbuja, a palm wine tapper, recalled that on the day the land and its economic trees were cleared by a bulldozer, he had gone to the site to tap wine and had already fixed gallons to the trees. He was shocked when he returned to the farm in the evening and saw that everything had been destroyed.

Ogbuja told the reporter that the family had demanded another plot of land owned collectively by Umuonu people in another area in exchange, but the authorities refused.

On his part, Ezeja has accused the Umuonoja Oyina family of being economical with the truth.

He said: “This is purely a community affair. It was the community that collectively agreed that they need to re-establish and enlarge that market which had been in existence before it went moribund during the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. It has been my policy that I don’t dabble in any community project without the collective approval of the people involved.

 “This project is a collective agreement of the town union, home and abroad, the traditional rulers and elders’ council. What we are doing at the local government level is simply to offer security and supervisory role in any way possible. They should count me out of their trouble because I don’t have any issues with anybody.

“I am also aware that the community said  they are not giving  the Umuonoja Oyina family another portion of land in exchange for the portion that fell into the market area because they reasoned that, if the family is given preferential treatment, there is the tendency that the other eight families will also demand their own share too. In the history of any community development, it is human beings that should sacrifice their heritage. It is people that gave out lands for church buildings, schools, markets and even virgin road construction, so there is nothing so spectacular about this one.”

President of Umuonu Town Union, Comrade George Omeke, also absolved the council boss of any complicity in the market project, insisting that the community collectively agreed to resurrect that market.

“Before my election in 2015, the issue of going back to the market had been in the pipeline. The place in question is known as Orie Umuonu, a market founded by our progenitor, Onu. It was the war that scattered the market and, after the war, the nine families annexed the land and started farming there. Those who say they are the owners of the land are just trying to twist facts because all of them annexed it. Somebody in 2014 went there to build but the community rose against it and demolished the building. There is a community shrine there known as Onu Umuada Umuonu.

“We felt there was a need to build a viable market in the area and the entire community agreed. There is an architect designing the market, while a committee has been set up. Everything about this project and actions were recorded on video tape.  Our community has been operating a gerontocracy where some serious disputes are resolved at the home of the oldest man in the community. It is also fallacious for the Umuonoja Oyina to claim that they have the largest portion of land in the place because I’m sure that the clan of our traditional ruler even has a greater portion there but they have also released the land,” he said.

Traditional ruler of Umuonu community, Igwe Ambrose Eze, Igijikwu I of Umuonu, appealed for peace and calm.

He told the reporter: “The people of Umuonoja Oyina are looking for trouble on this matter, but we have been following it with dialogue. The land belongs to our forefathers, not them. The market had been there before my father was born but it was the shooting that occurred during the civil war that scattered the market. This was a market that I knew in my childhood where people who bought cows or horses for funeral normally visited for some rituals, before Christianity took over and all those cultures were abolished. I had insisted that the family members who had annexed the land should be visited one by one before we commenced work. But the delegation that went to see the Umuonoja Oyina family was locked outside by the same Sylvester Ekehja the day they visited. We shall continue to toe the path of peace and we have even conscripted two of their family members in the market committee so that they will feel a sense of belonging.”

However, another prominent member of the Umuonoja Oyina family, an entrepreneur and property consultant based in Enugu, insisted that the matter was suspicious.

“Because other family members don’t seem to fight for their rights, they want us to toe that same line of timidity, but it can’t work. Up till now, we have not seen the size or drawing of the market. They don’t know that we have already surveyed the place and are in possession of relevant documents.

“They want to maliciously take over our land and use the market as an excuse. We want to know whether they are buying, leasing or making us part-owners of the market. If they are sincere, let them tell us the size of the land. You don’t compensate people for their property by telling stories.

“Let everything be clearly spelt out and written down because, if the right things are not done, anybody entering the land for any reason is taking a big risk. We have asked them to give us the prototype of the market if they must build there so we can build and pay returns to them, but they refused. They have rejected all our proposals but we can’t fold our arms and allow them take our land just like that,” he said.