Controversies Trail Owerri-Egbu-Mbaise Road Reconstruction …As Indigenes, Inhabitants Rendered Homeless, Their Socio-Economic Activities Crumbled

Demolitions of many more ancestral homes, graves, monuments, transformers, ancestral family sit outs known as (‘Obi ama’), stalls and other structures situate at Mpama and Umuofor villages in Egbu autonomous community in Owerri North local government area have been reported to generate controversies.

The ongoing demolitions were said to subject the people of the area to hardships and sufferings following the damages meted out to their property.

The people are said to be raising the alarm that no compensations have been made in spite of the damages done.

Revelations have emerged some of which are that the Owerri-Umuahia road was a colonial road and subsequently a trunk B road before its latest placement and that apart, that specific spaces were said to be absorbed where the high tension electric poles were mounted both sides for very many years.

It was further revealed that the road has been repeatedly reconstructed at different times without any plans for the habitation and convenience of the indigenes and inhabitants from the side of government.

This was said to be evident upon the littered rubble resulting from slow pace of work on the side of the construction company.

Sources have said that either of the villages is threatening to approach the courts through human right lawyers to seek redress over damages done even as some might resort to evoking the wrath of the ancestors with reference to when NEPA took part if their land in the past which attracted several thunder strikes that put their installations in tatters.

At a certain point in Mpama village,it was said that the reconstruction of the road has led to incidents among which include a certain pregnant woman and an elderly man who fell into a damaged gutter and who are still in hospital as at the period.