Governor Peter Mbah has been demolishing properties in Enugu State in large quantities. Hon. Chijioke Jonathan Edeoga, the Labour Party’s candidate for governor in the 2023 elections, has denounced this behaviour and called for the government to respect human decency and legal procedures.
Edeoga claims that thousands of people and companies have been impacted by the demolition, which targeted parks, marketplaces, private buildings, and even educational institutions. It has also caused waves of grief and anger.
Communities across Nsukka, Gariki, and the metropolis of Enugu have been rocked by the abrupt and violent removal of their main sources of income.
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The demise of Our Saviour’s Institute of Science and Technology (OSISATECH), in spite of a court order secured to avert such an outcome, is one example mentioned by Edeoga.
Taking to his X account, Edeoga said, “In the past week, there have been sudden gatherings of sorrows, tears, and blood, as the Enugu State Government under the leadership of Governor Peter Mbah embarked on an unprecedented demolition of parks, markets, and private properties.
“The gale of destruction, executed with what looks like a predetermined despotic dispatch that jettisoned sensitivity to humanity and the rule of law, affected thousands of people, businesses, and even educational institutions across Nsukka, Enugu metropolis and Gariki, in Awkunanaw, a satellite town in Enugu. In Nsukka, the Enugu State government is poised to bring down shops, stalls, and plazas of businessmen around and within the perimeters of the town’s main motor park. Equally marked are stores within the Nsukka main market.
“In Enugu, the agents of the Enugu State Government destroyed the main transportation hub in the state capital around Holy Ghost Cathedral. While discussion was going on regarding how the government should have given prior long notices to quit during which alternative places should be provided, the government launched its action, levelling the entire area in minutes.
“Interestingly, the Enugu State Government extended its long fingers of impunity to Our Saviour’s Institute of Science and Technology (OSISATECH), a private institution of higher learning belonging to a charismatic Catholic priest, Rev Fr Emmanuel Edeh. This educational institution was levelled despite a court order obtained to prevent the school’s demolition.”
Edeoga continued, “If there have been suspicions that the administration in Enugu State is insensitive to public sentiment and disdainful of the rule of law, the demolition of OSISATECH tended to validate it. It is scary that a government that swore to uphold the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is routinely disobeying court orders.
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“Interestingly, these businesses were forced, only a few months ago, to pay huge taxes and levies on those shops. It is curious that the Enugu State Government waited until it had collected these levies and taxes before destroying the sources of those funds.
“While it is understood that some of those areas demolished have constituted challenges of congestion and are due for some form of urban renewal, it must be recognized that no urban renewal activity has ever happened in one fell swoop. Development, especially as it affects urban renewal is an incremental activity that takes cognizance of impacts on persons and businesses. A government that is genuinely focused on renewal approaches such changes with the well-being of the people as its priority.
“This is why it raises serious concerns that the government of Enugu State began these activities without any form of consultation with the people and communities affected. More serious is the fact that there was no plan for relocation of those businesses to other locations before the demolition.
“It has been learned that the government intends to build motor parks in those areas that have been demolished, but what nobody has established is how a motor park was considered more important than the sources of livelihood of thousands of people. There were two more viable options open to the government: either relocating the markets and businesses in those areas to another location, if the motor parks must be at the heart of the city or building the garages on the outskirts of the city.”
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He added, “The essence of government everywhere in the world is the aggregation of the needs of the people into a pool where common solutions are incubated; it is the building of consensus on what constitutes the common good bearing in mind the social, economic, and even personal sensitivities. Democratic legitimacy ultimately belongs to the people, and that is why everything governments do must factor in the sensitivity of all concerned.
“But it appears that in Enugu State, under the current administration, the government considered its needs to be higher and more important than those of the people. There is no sign clearer that the needs of the people were not considered unimportant by the government than the lack of consultation that preceded these actions. The disobedience by the government, of a court order against the demolition, is also viewed by every right-thinking member of society as inherently tyrannical.
“While it is too late in the day to, as they say, put the toothpaste back into the tube, the Enugu State Government should take immediate remedial steps to ease the burdens of all the people displaced by the demolition,” he concluded.
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