The protesting naked women complemented about 2000 members of the community blockaded the entrance to the airport, sealed it with sacred palm fronds to barricade entry point and made bonfires of disused tyres, vowing to occupy the place for the next one month, until the state government remedied the situation.
The demonstrators who called the state governor, Willie Obiano, who is from the rival neighbouring Aguleri, unprintable names, varied placards, some of which inscriptions read: “We cannot be refugees in our own land,” “Willie Obiano, leave our land alone,” “No official Environmental Impact/Health and Social Assessment, no Airport,” “No MOU, no Airport,” “Land grabbers should leave Umueri out,” and “No release of the corresponding size of encroached Parcels B in Parcel A, no Airport.”
The Chairman of the Joint Meeting of the three kindreds that own the controversial airport project land, Chief Innocent Ndumanya, told newsmen that the protesters from the kindreds of Enuagu of Mgbede village, Umuinu of Ogbu village and Umuopu of Umuopu village, all in Ifite Umueri, that own the land came out to protest because the state government abandoned the original 729.606 hectares of land originally donated to the state government and allegedly grabbed extra 1901 hectares of land for not just the airport project but also for sharing as party patronage and goodwill to well-wishers, without the knowledge and consent of the owners.
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Ndumanya pointed out that the 729.606 hectares of land gazetted for the airport were the only known land properly donated and acquired, but the government left it to where it named Parcel B to begin the airport project work in error.
He said that “the process of acquiring Parcel B should be revisited as the owners of the land were not consulted in any way during the acquisition process if there was any process at all and thus we are demanding that the government should hand us back our land.
However, since the government had started development on the land in error, they should go into Parcel A and give back to the landowners the equivalent of Parcel B in Parcel A.
He called that a comprehensive memorandum of understanding be entered into between the kindreds that own the extensive areas of land, stressing that adequate compensation is paid to the owners of the land and the farm settlers for the crops demolished in the process of entering into the said Parcel B.
According to him, the idea of the purported Parcel C and D was not part of the original plan, urging the government to drop the proposed Parcel C and D “due to the fact that it will displace the entire Ifite Umueri made up of Mgbede, Ogbu and Umuatolu villages.”
He observed that “due to the expected health and other inherent hazards associated with siting a project of this nature in an environment, we demand that an impact assessment report be made available to the community and also an insurance policy arrangement be opened for the people of the community.”
Ndumanya said that Umueri entirely welcomed the siting of the Airport on their land, but contended that if the gesture turned as a ploy to annex their ancestral lands and turn Umueri into refugee camps, the government would rather relocate the Airport out of their land.
The leader of the naked protesters, Mrs Ugo Nwakonuche appealed to the governor to leave Agu n’ato land alone, as according to her, the ancestral land is reserved for Umueri as farmland and for the children to build their homesteads.
She pointed out that, in the build-up to the re-election, Obiano approached Umueri, reminding them as neighbours of Aguleri, they should allow him to lay claim to the airport land to substantiate his claim of building a legacy project to shone up performance profile.
Mrs Nwakonuche lamented that Umueri was also made to believe that a link road was only being built, only for the government to start destroying the infrastructure of up to 200.
She declared that, if the government fails to heed the clarion call, the women would move into the site and chase the workers out of the project site.
Accusing the governor of purportedly “waging a war of vengeance on account of what was done to his father,” she pointed out that the Aguleri-born governor has no boundary with Ifite-Umueri, wondering his perceived vested interest to annex the land on the pretext of building an airport.”
Women protest naked
and then