By Chuks Eke
The Campaign for Democracy, CD and it’s sister human rights group, Human Rights Liberty Access and Peace Defender’s Foundation, HURIDE, have called on Governor Chukwuma Soludo to as a matter urgent importance retrieve all public cemeteries from the grips of notorious individuals and organisations who are land grabbing syndicates in the commercial city of Onitsha, Anambra state and its environs.
Loading ...In a press statement issued in Onitsha on Wednesday, Chairman of CD in South East and Executive Director of HURIDE, High Chief Uzor A Uzor, lamented that there is no more public Cemeteries in existence in Onitsha as all the available ones have been sold and converted to individual use by the vicious land grabbers as according to him, there is no space left to bury the dead in Onitsha at the moment.
According to Uzor, “all the cemeteries mapped out by the government in the past located at Oraifite Street in Awada area of Obosi in Idemili North Local Government Area and New Cemetery Road in Odoakpu area of Onitsha in Onitsha South Local Government Area have been sold out to different people by the land grabbers, adding, the only cemetery left in Onitsha at the moment is the one owned by the Moslem community in Onitsha along Modebe Avenue”, Odoakpu Onitsha.
He therefore called on Soludo to as a matter of urgency retrieve all those Cemeteries from the syndicates so as to create a place to bury the dead in Onitsha and its environs.
“There should be a place for people to bury their dead in Onitsha and environs. All those Cementeries taken over by the land grabbers and converted to their individual use like the one in Oraifite Street Awada Obosi and New Cemetery Road, where private buildings,Chuches and residential houses are now springing up should be recovered with immediate effect by the Anambra State Government” said High Chief Uzor.
He lamented that some of these Cemeteries have been taken over by the two major churches in the state, the Roman Catholic and the Anglican church especially that of Old Cemetery Road in Odoakpu,Onitsha.
“Governments should activate all the instruments at its disposal with the respective local government authorities to move into action immediately, he stated, adding, it is very disheartening that parts of the Cemeteries have been taken over by churches, while others were taken over by individual land grabbers and I must emphasize that those Cemeteries should be recovered with immediate effect to provide burial grounds for the dead as originally planned”.
Sentiment apart, Government should develop the political will to do what is right which is revoking all the buildings and churches and recover the Cemeteries now”.High Chief Uzor implored.
