By Favour Goodness
A widow, Mrs Chika Ibeneme has decried the police encroachment on her land at Nka village, Nsugbe, Anambra East Local Government Area of Anambra state.
The former Commissioner for Works, Transport and Housing in the state during Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife administration in her Nsugbe residence on Sunday vowed to drag the police authority to court.
she said that she was informed of the encroachment while in Abuja by one of the workers employed by the police who she said was familiar with the terrain.
“I was in Abuja when I had a distress call from one of the people who claimed he is a mason working there saying that they were working in the land they believe is mine.That police are constructing police station inside my land and that was why I came down and went there”.
“I was baffled and shocked that such a thing should be happening. Why should it be on my land, it is an encroachment. I did one or two findings and discovered the man that was doing it.
“He is the recently promoted Deputy Inspector General of Police, the man encroached on my land and he has been battling with me on that land for some time.
“I did not know his intension was to bring the police. I will go to court but I want to alert the world that the police have encroached on my land. Their sign board is mounted there and they did not tell me that they are encroaching on my land.
“I don’t know whether that land was designated by the police officially or that he just feel like call it favour because of his recent promotion to DIG.
“I don’t know whether police is aware of what he is doing. How can they have a police station there and there is another police station there,” Ebeneme said
she said that her aim of going to the press was to let the police authority know there is an encroachment on her land bought by her late husband, Luke Ibeneme.
“My husband, Luke, who is late, bought it with his own money, I am a widow and he wants to grab it and give to police. If he has agreed with the police to give them land let him look for elsewhere and give to the police and not my land,” she said.
The former Commissioner, consequently appealed to Gov. Willie Obiano, President Muhammadu Buhari and IGP to prevail on the police authority to hands off her land.
“The land they encroached upon is over 60 plots of land with economic cash crops lost. I have three iroko threes there, mangoes, pawpaw, oranges, among others.
“It was a land intended by my husband for agricultural farming. He wanted to go into bulk plantation and the land is right inside the forest, behind Oyi river,” Ibeneme affirmed.
Pleading for immediate intervention to recover her land, she urged the police to commence investigation on the land.
“I am ageing gracefully and I don’t want anything that will give me high blood pressure, I want to just settle down peacefully,” she said.
