Uzodimma Has Sanitized Land Administration, Acquisitions Above 20 Hectares May Be Flagged, Fraudulent Deals on Imo Lands Now Thing of the Past —Enyinna Onuegbu

The Hon Commissioner for lands, Survey and Physical Planning Chief Barr Enyinna Onuegbu says one of the most important legacies of the present government is the sanitization of the entire land Administration system, through the Land digitization policy of the Uzodimma Administration which has completely phased out paper transactions and documentations on Land.

Governor Hope Uzodimma

In an interview with the Nigerian Horn, Chief Barrister Onuegbu said Government embarked on the digitization policy to guarantee a full proof system that will not only ensure transparent land administration but also prevents and exposes any form of fraudulent practices now and in the future.

Enyinnaya Onuegbu

The Lands Commissioner emphasized that the first assignment of his ministry was the implementation of the Government white paper on Land,being the recommendations of the Judicial Panel on Land,which equally exposed a lot of wrath in the system and further reinforced the need for digitization.

He said,Consequently all the fraudulent deals, illegal acquisitions and wrongful possessions of Lands before the present Administration have been or are in the process of being rectified to correct any perceived errors and injustices.Enyinna explained that the Governor being the custodian of all lands in the State believes in cleaning up the mess of the past in line with the digitization, before indulging in new Land Allocations hence the perceived delays by those seeking land allocations from the Uzodimma Administration, except in a few special cases where Government has given concessionary considerations to the requests by the Bank of Industry, Urashi Electricity Company, Concorde Hotel Holdings, Nigerian Navy, FMC Okigwe, Clarentian University, Zion Ministries while tidying up that of the Catholic University.

The Lands Commissioner said he has tremendously improved staff welfare to dissuade them from being used by land speculators, syndicates and land grabbing agents and also made efforts to reduce conflicts between the Ministry, sister ministries and Agencies like the OCDA among others. Ending the past era of working across purposes as well as reduced the plethora of litigations. As his efforts have stopped the milling around of land speculators within premises of the Ministry as was common in the past while sources of all the fake allocation papers hitherto flying around have been tracked ,dealt with, eliminated and sanity restored.

Barr Enyinna who is also the SA to the Governor, Political Affairs and Head of the Political Bureau, Government House, explained that since he assumed office all Land acquisitions for overriding public interests, including revocations are widely announced and repeatedly publicized to alert those that may be affected inline with the administration’s due process mantra, and that is why litigations concerning the government on land matters have been drastically reduced to almost zero.

On the recent Owerri High Court judgement on Housing Area “K” and Restoration Layout New Owerri between Owerri people and the State Government, and a similar judgement by the Supreme of Nigeria,on the disputed Nekede Zoo Land Area, between the State Government and Umuejechi people, the Lands Commissioner said that the Government is yet to get the Certified True Copies of the judgements and that Government would respond thereafter.

Barr Enyinna further disclosed that the State Government is close to perfecting a regulation stipulating that any land acquisition above 20Hectares must be approved by the Governor, to not only ensure prudent and efficient land utilization but essentially conserve available land resource for the future generations.

He described Governor Hope Uzodimma as a “competent and experienced pilot and that Imo people should keep supporting him”.