The Public Complaints Commission (PCC) has pledged to mediate in the simmering crisis between the Ekiti State government and farmers, who are protesting over alleged non-payment of N429 million compensation after their valuable crops were destroyed for the construction of the Ekiti State International Cargo Airport.
The affected farmers are from Igbogun, Aso-Ayegunle, Ijan Ekiti, Igbemo, and five other adjoining farmsteads under Ado Ekiti
The aggrieved farmers, who staged a protest at the PCC office, in Ado Ekiti, the state capital to register their displeasure over refusal of the state government to pay up their compensations, lamented that many of them have lost their lives, with many nursing sicknesses over the government’s action.
The Federal Commissioner in charge of Ekiti PCC, Kayode Bamisile, who interfaced with the aggrieved farmers, described the displacement of land owners and farmers from their lands without commensurate compensations as crass injustice.
Bamisile said the ideal situation for carrying out such a laudable project would have been to compensate the landowners first and the community being displaced.
He said, “This is the responsibility our office is saddled to deal with. It is wrong for the people in offices or the government itself to use their offices or their pens to commit, if I may say an administrative injustice, which is what this is.
“These are people whose cash and food crops like cocoa, corn, palm trees, plantain, banana, yam, are farmers and that is where they earn their living and the place is the source of livelihood. And to perpetrate such an act for over ten years and the people are still not being compensated, is absolutely unfair.”
The PCC boss, who frowned at the action added: “We are appealing and making a demand from the state government, in the good person of governor Biodun Oyebanji who has been the governor of the people to look into this matter and ensure that they are compensated adequately in terms of the present value not 10 years ago.
“We are making a demand at the same time that justice be done , that is why we are putting our full office behind the communities to ensure that they get what is due to them.”
Bamisile explained that a letter had been written to the state Bureau of Lands, which was directly involved in this matter to appear before it with relevant documents for the possibility of conferencing over the matter and bring a lasting solution that will assuage the farmers’ feelings.
Recounting their harrowing ordeals, one of the farmers, Osho Olorunfemi, said a total of nine communities whose farmlands were acquired for the airport project were affected.
“We have been on this compensation issue since 2013. We prayed, we went to court, protested severally but nothing tangible has been done. As at 2021, out of 1300 affected farmers, they only cater for a few of them among us. They were given stipends not commensurate with the real worth of the lands.
“Some of our people were paid N40,000 , N80,000 , N100,000 just as they (the past government) felt it was adequate, whereas the law court said we should be adequately compensated, even other affected people were not even considered for anything.”
Corroborating the foregoing submission, other victims, Chief Ojo Awe and Farotimi Sinmi, lamented that; “We got a huge loan from the bank to invest in agriculture, that very year they came in and destroyed the plantation. The bank people have been coming to me every week telling me to pay back their money with interest. Some of our fathers have died in the process of struggling to get our compensation.
“The past government failed us. We went to governor Biodun Oyebanji, who held a meeting with us on June 9, and promised that the remaining people would get their compensations in a few weeks’ time, but nothing has been done. We are still being owed over N429m as unpaid compensation.”
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