Achalla residents protest ceding of land to neighbouring community

Indigenes of Achalla community in the Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State, recently thronged the Government House, Awka in protest over the ceding of a disputed land to their Urum neighbours by the Local Government Authority.

Leader of the protesters, Mr Calistus Nnakwue, who is the Secretary-General of Achalla Improvement Union, who addressed journalists at the entrance of the Government House, said a peace committee set up by the chairman of Awka North Local Government Area met on many occasion over the disputed land, but never invited any member of the Achalla community before ceding the land to Urum, a neighbouring town.

Describing the local government area’s action as unfair, Nnakwue said: “We are here to call the attention of the governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, over the awarding of the land to Urum community without hearing from our representatives.

“The land in question belongs to us and we are calling on Professor Soludo to set us a new committee to preside over the matter and give unbiased verdict.”

The protesters, comprising the old and young of the community carried placards of various inscriptions.

Some of their placards read ‘We need a new and impartial and unbiased panel’, ‘we were not taken into consideration by the panel, and our report was not taken’, a responsible panel cannot do land border demarcation without the consent of the affected communities.”

After registering the petition to the appropriate quarters at the Governor’s Office, Nnakwue sued for calm in Achalla, saying he was satisfied with the assurances given to Achalla delegation by government officials, especially the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the Governor.

He said: “We are satisfied with the responses of government officials. We ask for calm in Achalla because we know that our governor will handle this matter satisfactorily. We were told that after two weeks if nothing is done about it we should return to Government House to continue from where we stopped.

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