Beware! Ogwashi Ukwu land is not for sale-community leader

Professor and traditional ruler in Agidiahe Quarters, HH Nwajei Chuks Nwajei, Agumba and Akaji Obi of Ogwashi-Ukwu is one man who you cannot be faulted when it comes to traditional issues in Nigeria. He believes in the judicial process and has been fighting his case through the court despite the frustrations from the judiciary. For years, he has been fighting against illegal sell of land in his community by some unscrupulous indigenes of his community who are not minding the future of their generations, yet unborn to collect peanuts and ‘dash’ out their inheritance for free. He has gone to court, but he has been denied justice by a cabal who have infiltrated the judiciary in Delta State to perpetrate crimes. Not bordered, he has vowed not to relent to make sure that Ogwashi Ukwu land is secured from bands of criminals. In this interview, Nwajei bares his mind on the disputed illegal land deals, persons behind it and how the court in the state is denying the poor justice. He spoke to EMEKA IBEMERE, in Lagos   

We learnt that there is another land dispute in Ogwashi Ukwu, what are the bones of contention?

  Just come back from the village and we were saying before that Ogwashi Ukwu is sinking but right now, it’s ready for burial. The last i complained about PHCN services in Ogwashi Ukwu, roads, insecurity and other things but what is happening now is that Ogwashi Ukwu polytechnic students have relocated out of the town down to our neighbouring communities. All the students have left Ogwashi Ukwu to Isele Asagba, otulu, Asagba -Ogwashi Ukwu, these are villages three-five kilometres from Ogwashi ukwu. When you get Ogwashi ukwu now, all our houses are empty and a lot of our children who borrowed money from the banks to build hostel, are now at lost because nobody is using those buildings. They are all empty as business has dried up. If you go to that school now, hostels are empty.

What happened, is there war in Ogwashi ukwu?  

No electricity, no water, no good roads and social infrastructure are at low ebb. If a student should spend a N1000, for generating a light to read, it’s a big sum of money plus buying water, including no access roads, so what they did was to relocate. I have a hostel, my mother also has but we don’t have any student there right now as we speak. So Ogwashi ukwu is now ready for burial. Nothing is working there. And the next problem we encounter now is that i kept on complaining about matrimony which our fore-fathers kept for us. As i speak now, i don’t thing we have three percent of land expanses to sell. There are clique of three; the jury Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu, he is not the Iyase himself, but he is parading himself as Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu. Collins Afuwah, who incidentally, because i have another aspect of this interview, who is the chairman of the governing council of Greenhill university, i have documents to that effect and we have also suspended him from the board due to certain anomalies that we have discovered about his Curriculum Vita, that made us to give him the doctoral award of African campus. As i speak with you now, as the president of African Campus, we have suspended his doctoral award and we are waiting for the formal letter from the university to strip him of that award because he doesn’t qualify to be a doctoral award holder of the Green Hill University. We found out that he had over the past 20 years, been on the list of the Nigeria Customs Services’ wanted persons. He sold uniform, promoted himself as Assistant Comptroller General of customs and he was caught; as they were about to try him, he ran to USA, and as we speak now, he is been wanted by the USA government. These were facts that were hidden to us but which are now coming to light. This is a man, whom i personally brought up to be the Chairman of the governing board after giving him the doctoral award of the university. But we now found out that Collins Afuwah, quote me; in the Nigerian law report is not the authentic Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu.

What is the title of Iyase all about?

Iyase is the traditional Prime minister. The authentic Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu is Chief Nwaukoni Chukwuka, of Migro Group of Companies.  I give you his address to go and interview him to balance what I’m telling you. What happened was that Migro been the Iyase, was the boss of Collins Afuwah, a personal Assistant to Iyase. We all came from the same community, so Migro was the Iyase of Ogwashi Ukwu but because of the crookedness of certain persons, he went come with the money of chief Nwaukoni and made himself the sectional head of Iyase of Agidiase Quarters, he was not performing ,  he came to Ogwashi ukwu and with little know-how, i made him the jury Iyase of Ogwashi-ukwu, but when i went home, the lawyers started calling me, and showed me the Nigeria law report whereby it was reported that Chief Nwaukoni was the authentic Iyase of Ogwashi-ukwu and not Collins Afuwah.

What was the content of the law report?

It stated that the Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu is Chief Nwaukoni. The Appeal Court says Chief Nwaukoni is the authentic Iyase. So, it’s there in the Nigeria law report.

So what is the problem with Chief Collins Afuwah?

What is happening now is that two people are now selling off all the lands in Agidiehe quarters in Ogwashi ukwu community. The jury Iyase Ogwashi ukwu, claiming to be Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu, Chief Afuwah has sold all the lands in Agidiehe community. He has sold 97 percent of land in Agidiase Quarters.

By last week, there was a land Agidiehe has surveyed, we have over 3000 acres of land in Agidiehe, surveyed land and the same man, Collins Afuwah tactically called me to say that he wanted me and himself to start selling the Agidiehe community land. I told him, that i was going to see him so that we can discuss. The next he did was to have a tour of the land, and then he called me and said that he wanted two of us to connive and sell the land and take the proceeds for ourselves. But i told him that i wasn’t going to be part of it. The next thing he did was to put in thugs into Agidiehe lands and Agidiehe community wrote a petition to him and we met him and claimed that he never said that the land was his own. Two days later, he took thugs numbering 50, with AK 45 and with pump action guns and they were there in the bush and started removing our beacons.

These lands have been surveyed Agidiase and Agidiehe have common boundaries and having sold all Agidiase lands, he is now in Agidiehe lands with thugs. We have invited the police; he is denying that he was there but he was there. I’m appealing, first, where did he get the AK47 and AK45 that he armed his boys with? He has another case at the SCID Asaba, where his boys machete Agidiehe boys and the Nigeria police at Asaba are still investigating the case and they aren’t ready to prosecute because he is claiming that rather, it is true that he has a lot of policemen in his house that are backing him. If a man could arm over 50 boys with dangerous weapon, they police cannot tell me that cannot see him or that they weren’t aware. These boys aren’t spirit.

Are you accusing police of complicity in the case?

I’m not accusing Ogwashi Ukwu police division of complicity in the matter, but am accusing some Nigerian police officers of complicity because you cannot tell armed those boys; as little as 15 years old boys and they are carrying guns in broad daylight, the police cannot tell me that what Afuwah is doing isn’t known to them. We wrote a letter to them and no action has been taken on it. They haven’t replied our letter. Like we said in this petition, there is nobody who has the monopoly of violence.

I’m an educated leader and i have been holding back my people at Agidiehe but we cannot fold our hands and standby and allow this imposter to take and sold our land after selling all the lands in Agidiase and now he is entering Agidiehe land. He is selling but what we are saying to the people he sold to; is that they cannot build on Agidiehe land because it is our land from time immemorial.

Why are your people selling land?

It is poverty one, secondly people are afraid. I kept on shouting about what is happening at Ogwashi ukwu kingdom, where violence rules. This same man Am talking about, has taken out his family out of Ogwashi ukwu for over six years now, but he is using other people’s children to carry arms and killed themselves, maim our people, and i want to ask one salient question, if a man is building on his land, can he use thugs, can he use arms or thugs to build on his own land? We aren’t afraid of our ownership of the land, we aren’t going to use police, and we are going to use police that haven’t been compromised. We are going to use court. I want to say one thing, particularly to the chief judge of Delta State. This same Collins Afuwah, who is so close to me, has bought deep into the Delta State judiciary. I want the Chief Judge of Delta State, to look into several awaiting trial cases; whereby Chief Collins Afuwah tactically, even with my own support, calls the magistrate judge and the next morning, land case suspects are thrown into jail as awaiting trial for three to four months and thereafter, no case is heard. This is happening in Ogwashi ukwu today. And even in the high court, i want to give you another letter before you go, there are cases i have with certain persons who are close to Afuwah and they will come out and boast they have won the cases even when the cases haven’t been heard.

To this effect, i wrote to the high court judge, chief justice, to the high court judge, honourable Theresa Ade transferring three cases that i had in her court to the chief judge of Delta State. What this woman did in an open court was to read the letter i wrote to her in an open court when the case was not due for that date and asked the lawyer of my opponent that the photocopy should be given to him instead of reversing that case to the chief judge, she now in her court, transfer the case to her sister’s court at court 4 Asaba it is never done anywhere and this has to show the complicity and corruption that is going on in Ogwashi ukwu and Delta State judiciary. Taking a case from the high court to the magistrate court, quote me!

 The court they are using to put people into jail as awaiting trial cases; that is they conspired with the prosecutor and in any land matter, they call the judge, give him some money; cook up an allegation and pushed the suspects in prison and thereafter, the case will not continue. I want to say here and i want to be confessed. That i was part of that cabal that where doing that kind of thing and I’m apologising to Ogwashians, and to everybody that this is what is happening, that there are no justices in Delta State; that justice is what the Afuwah and his mafia group says is what it is. I was part of the cabal since 2001 and in 2012; i told them that i was not going to be part of the cabal again. The cabal is still going on.

So what is the solution?

As far as am concerned, there is no solution in Ogwashi ukwu. I’m going to take this matter up with the Nigerian judicial Commission (NJC); you cannot have a case in court whereby the outcome is already known before the suites are filed. It isn’t done in this country but it’s going on in Ogwashi ukwu and i think it’s something that should be looked into. I’m appealing to the chief justice of the state to investigate the judicial process going on in Asaba judicial division and in Ogwashi ukwu. I’m also appealing to the inspector-general of the police, to investigate what is happening in Ogwashi ukwu, where one man could be arming 50 youths with AK 45, not one, not two not four and they are carrying it on the roads, on okada with impunity without the police asking question.

Are you sure they are not the community vigilante group?

The vigilante case is gone. As far as am concerned, vigilante is a forgotten issue. They are asking me to withdraw the case from the court but i cannot withdraw the case against the vigilante. I have been told that the vigilante case is being transferred to a sister court where by Theresa Ade is interested in this vigilante case. But if the chief judge doesn’t transfer that case out of Asaba, out of Ogwashi ukwu, we are not going to get justice; and am going to take this matter to the Nigerian judicial council to investigate while one judge should be interested in a case. Why one judge should be in a place for seven years and they are demanding land for judgement.

The land speculators in Ogwashi ukwu seem not to consider the future of their incoming generation. Why is it this way?

That is the problem. Quote me, go to Ogwashi ukwu, Agidiase as a community; that is where my mother comes from has no single land. They are selling and re-selling. One man is selling, like if you read this letter, we asked him, are you the first Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu and assuming that you are the authentic Iyase, that is, if other Iyases before you sold lands like you are selling now, where would you have sold?

From 17^th century, we have been having Iyase and land matter where never a problem. We were communal and one man came parading himself as Iyase and virtually sold all the land including Agidiase land. Now he has left Agidiase land and has encroached into Agidiahe land. He has more than 14 cases of land matter involving encroaching on people’s land and selling and re-selling of land. He is buying cars and hasn’t awarded scholarship to any person. He recruited 15 years old children, give guns, matchetes and buy okada for them to go and lay siege in the people’s bush and selling lands. The Ogwashi Ukwu Development Union (ODU) has been saying leave Ogwashi ukwu land alone but Collins Afuwah has not listened to anybody. He was here in Lagos State and was selling second handed televisions and other items, now he has relocated to Ogwashi ukwu and constituting criminality in the town, selling peoples’ land and reselling people’s land. But selling land is not the issue, trying to criminalise our children is the problem and what we asking the police to investigate was to look into the arms he was using to equip small children.

What is the Obi Ogwashi ukwu saying on this?

He was the person empowering him; he will sell the land and give peanuts to Obi. Whatever that is happening, the Obi knows, whatever he was doing, the so-called personal assistant to obi knows. All the chiefs are tired and ask any ogwashians in Lagos state or elsewhere, Collins is the problem. He is the criminal selling our land. He can take me to court, am ready with documents to defend myself and prove my case.

What is the way out?

Firstly, like he has entered Agidiahe land, we have gone to court, we have given an injunction paper but we do not trust the high court, quote me. They work hand in hand. My appeal is that, the judiciary in Ogwashi ukwu from the entire magistrate should be reshuffled. All cases concerning Chief Collins Afuwah, the Obi of Ogwashi Ukwu should be transferred out of Asaba jurisdiction. We have Kwale, we have Warri and others; transferred all the cases concerning these people, the purported Obi, the purported Iyase of Ogwashi ukwu cases be transferred out of Asaba jurisdiction. All the people they have detained without trial be released and their cases reviewed because the cases were framed up charges.

Was Chief Collins selling individuals land or the community lands?

Like in Agidiahe, we have taken him to court. Our community took his community to court. What Agidiase said was that this man is a criminal as anybody, we have been in harmony with any other person, we had no land dispute with Agidiase, we sent delegates and they said this Collins is a problem. I want to appeal to Agidiase people, everywhere, anywhere, why should one man hold Agidiase to ransom.  Agidiase community is not fighting us. Collins is fighting his people and our people. The Agidiase community is factionalised and the fragmentation is caused by him. His boss was the Iyase of Ogwashi Ukwu now he went to this Obi who wasn’t recognised and took the same Iyase title and the Appeal courts disqualified him but because he was ruling with thugs and guns people are afraid of him.