Court fines Delta lawmaker N1m over land trespass

A High Court at Effurun in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State has, on Wednesday, fined a member of the Delta State House of Assembly, Mr Michael Diden, also known as Ejele, N1 million as damages for trespassing a landed property located along new Ogorode road, opposite Apollo Presidential Hotel, Sapele, Delta State.

The landed property, measuring approximately 100X100 belongs to a property management company in the area, Assets Development and Management Company Ltd (ADAMCO) and its Chairman, Mr. Chadwick Akpurie.

Presiding judge of the court, Justice G. E. Gbemre,  while delivering judgment on suit number S/70/2008, affirmed that, “the claimant (Chadwick Akpurhie) is entitled to the statutory right of occupancy of the land measuring 943.360 square metres (approximately 100X100) which survey plan number is VPSDT06194, with beacon number DTD7540, DTD7541, DTD7542 and DTD7543.”

He further granted the claimant’s prayer for “an order of the court compelling the defendant (Michael Diden) by himself, agents, servants or privies from trespassing or further trespassing into the land and to remove from the claimant’s land the block fence and the building constructed in the land.”

Earlier, counsel to the claimant, Mr. Peter Obiagba had told the court that “the defendant had on 22/6/2008, chased the claimant out of the land and after refusing police directive to restore it to him, he went ahead and erected a block fence and a building on.”

According to him, the trespasser had, since then, taken unlawful possession of the property and, in-spite of the court’s leniency, the defendant had used different tactics to ensure miscarriage of justice.

The case had been on for eight years as a result of what Obiagba described as “unnecessary adjournments.”

The lawmaker was absent when the matter came up for judgment on Wednesday, but his counsel, Mr. J. Sagay, arrived the court midway into the reading of the judgment.

Sagay did not object to the judgment.