WE ENTRUSTED NITEL LAND TO INNOSON, NOT FOR SALE-Nzukora Nnewi

WE ENTRUSTED NITEL LAND TO INNOSON, NOT FOR SALE-Nzukora Nnewi

Mr Ikedoji Onyedikachukwu is currently the Publicity Secretary, Nzukora Nnewi Town Union. In this interview with Adaora Muogbo, the Secretary cleared the air on how Nzukora Nnewi begged Innoson to take NITEL land.



Excerpts:

There was a media publication alleging that Nzukora Nnewi begged Innoson to take NITEL land; how true is it?

Well, we wish to let the general public know that there is no land in Nnewi designated as NITEL land. The land that is erroneously being referred to as NITEL land is Okwuani land. However, it should be on record that Igwe Nnewi, Igwe K.O.N Orizu, while planning to develop Nnewi welcomed every investor, who can help to develop the land and he gave the land to NITEL on tenancy basis; and did not collect any money or Kola from them.

In fact, it is on record that he was paying bills for that land he gave to NITEL. The Igwe was paying bills from day one NITEL came in till the day they left without notice. So, NITEL has no business whatsoever to take our sacred land and involve it in any transaction. No sacred land in Nnewi is for sale to a corporate body or whosoever.



The Land was voluntarily given to NITEL for them to operate and now that they are not functional, Nnewi have taken back their land for developmental projects and it was on the process of taking back their land that we looked at the centrality of the land and entrusted it to one of our sons, who can be there and develop it. We did not sale it to him.

We entrusted it to him for some years after which we can decide to know what to do with the land. There was no bidding because it is a scared land. We just looked around and the only criterion is that he has a good image evident in his motor manufacturing business which we wish and desire that he assembles there. We had no intention to sell the land to him and he wasn’t begged. We only entrusted the land to him.  The rumour and publication in newspapers on begging him to buy the land is not true.

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Was it in the executive meeting of Nzukora that the decision about the land was reached?

The Town Union Act divided functions between the traditional rulers and the Town Unions, and we are solely in charge of developments. They are our custodians. In certain issues, we join decisions between the custodians and the town union. So, it is a joint decision between the Nzukora and traditional stools.

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The decision is not business oriented, and we do not have the intention to make profits by so doing.



However, it is important to note that a company that is posing itself as NAT.Com that acquired assets and liability of NITEL are laying claims on our sacred land. As I am talking now, they have sued us to court that NAT.Com acquired the assets and liabilities of NITEL.

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I think they need to understand the meaning of assets and liabilities. NITEL was our tenant and they sold their assets and liabilities to NAT.Com. Meanwhile, when the NAT.Com came in, we asked them to furnish us with information but we made it clear to them that they should bring a document attesting that Nnewi handed over the land to NITEL or the document which shows that we sold the land to NITEL and if they don’t see anything, they should know that our local deity was just being hospitable to the people of NITEL and we had no intention to advance such to them.

How NITEL came in and begged us and we gave them land without collecting anything is important. If NAT.Com wants to operate in Nnewi, they should also come and beg us and we might consider giving them land which must not necessarily be that place.

What affiliation has Innoson with that particular land?

We entrusted it to him to showcase his business, believing that after some years, we collect it and give it to another person because we have a lot of people in Nnewi, but we are not going to sell it. The lease is to last for fifty years. It is a brotherly agreement, so, the central message is that it was entrusted to him, not for sale and he was not begged.

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How true is the rumour that some people were sponsored to stop the building of town hall at Uruagu in Agboedo?

On this issue, we must accept that we met difficulties while trying to build the hall there. That hall is presently ongoing around the local government and we have reached the lintel level. We must know that Nnewi has a discrete ways of handling issues. It is not everything that we bring to the floor because such thing is an internal affair. The hall is sited behind Chicason factory.

What is Your View about the First Nnewi Political Summit?

I woke up to notice that some people are going about saying that they are going to hold first Nnewi Political Summit and it came to me as a surprise because the constitution of the town is clear. The publicity secretary acts as the spokesman in respect of the publication concerning Nzukora Nnewi. We asked who the convener was and they told us that they are Nnewi Professionals. We called the leadership of Nnewi Professionals to investigate and their leadership put up a disclaimer immediately that they are not a party to any summit and that they are not organising any summit; that they are apolitical and had no business organizing a summit.



They said that they are a collection of Nnewi graduates, who came under one umbrella to look at things in a collective perspective to help one another. I am also a member of Nnewi Professionals and we don’t have the intention to meddle into local politics. So, after the disclaimer, those organizing the summit who used Nnewi Professionals on flyers went behind them to register the name Nnewi Professionals in corporate Affairs Commission, whereas the group having the meeting like the Oganiru Nnewi felt that they didn’t have challenges going to register the group that is the town’s internal affair and brotherly thing.

But unknown to them, there was a threat coming. So, when they refused to dabble into politics by going to register it by the conveners whom some of them have identified themselves. Others are working through the back door but we know them. What the union is saying is that the answer they gave us wasn’t satisfactory and we are seeing it as APGA summit because everybody there except one person is APGA member. So, the town union decided to distance herself from the said summit.

We did not stop them from holding a summit but our work is to define the Summit. For them to hide under Nnewi and produce a resolution they want to impose on Nnewi people, it is my work to create awareness and stop the rascality. It is an APGA Summit and any decision reached has nothing to do with present Nnewi position in the statutory issues of the town.

There is no time it is recorded that Nnewi is at war for the past years. We don’t need political summit and if we do, it is going to be convened by the governing body because a summit has to be convened by a government to discuss the topical issues and we are going to write that Nnewi political summit is convened by Nzukora Nnewi. This is the issue we are going to discuss.

 

So, the true position now is that Nzukora Nnewi is not formally involved?

The contention is that even from inception, at the point of the initiation of the summit, it was beclouded by dubious intention because the people doing it were intelligent people and they knew how to follow the rules. If it was not beclouded by dubious intentions, they would have come out and say we are holding a summit.

Everybody make contributions, and we make contributions and make an input with dates, check the date that is convenient.  Calling an aspirant to come and tell us what he will do when he wins an election, an aspirant that has not even bought a form, who has not won the primary election. That is naïve and Nnewi will not allow herself to be defined like that. Political summits hold in Awka with the town union duly informed and involved. There are issues to bring up as boiling issues and not this in Nnewi.



Was Igwe Nnewi informed about the summit?

It is my constitutional duty to inform our traditional rulers and fathers that such body is coming to interview them on matters that are meant to affect the general public. Matters that are centred on Nnewi, I should be made to know about it.

SOURCE: DONAC PILOT NEWSPAPER

Vol  7,    No 14, Sept 5 2018