Panic grips Delta community over expiry date for land regularization
Palpable panic has griped landowners of core area 2 in Okpanam Community in Delta State following December 31st 2016expiration date for their regularization of documents relating to their land under the State Government new law on land regularization.
The state government had few months ago through its taskforce on the regularization of lands in core area 2 in Okpanam insisted on the need to have their land documents regularized or have their houses demolished.
The taskforce chairman, Chief Frank Omare, while answering questions from Journalists explained that land owners in the population of 2,940 which have landed property were issued demand notices, requesting them to as a matter of urgency to visit the State Ministry of Lands and Survey to regularize all documents relating to ownership and development of lands in the State, especially the core area 2 Okpanam Community near Asaba.
He said that the state government would not take the delight in demolishing houses if the owners did the need full to regularize their documents as Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) approval Survey Plan as well as building plan in the recently reviewed cost of N850,000. His words, “at the expiration of 90 days (ultimatum which had long started counting), government must be take its stands on defaulters because we cannot allow people to keep taking laws into their hands, but if not cleared, all the houses will be demolished”.
But investigation revealed that land speculators/fraudsters who were responsible for the sale of most of the lands in core area 2 Okpanam Community are now on the run as the State Government had also vowed to expose their shady deals as well as sending them to jail for fraudulent act.
Since the commencement of the recovery exercise on lost government lands, land owners who allegedly purchased lands in dubious means, have continued to wonder on the issue and wander around what it portents for a giant and richly blessed state like Delta State who do to them or take their property from them. Expectedly, over 2,940 land buyers were reported to have successfully acquired their various parcels of land without having any positive reason to consider the genuineness of whoever sold out such portions of land to them.
Further investigation revealed that out of the 2, 940 persons who purchased land with default documents only 200 persons have regularized their documents while others have allegedly resorted to litigation with the state government. One of them who did not want his name in the print said “what do government mean by regularization, I think it is extortion, we will go to court and exercise our rights”.
Sources said in the light of the festering economic slump, the state government had widened measures to generate more revenue, especially in its efforts to reclaim its lost property that have been in the wrong hands.
Speaking further, the Taskforce Chairman, Chief Frank Omare told our reporter “A whopping 95 percent of all the 2, 940 land lords are entrapped in the core area 2 of Okpanam, on the top most surface of this alarming matter, it is admissible that having a considerable large number of non-indigenous in an area simply reflects that Delta state is hospitable, and it should not be taken for granted.”
It was gathered that those who may not meet the date line have been jostled in fear over their present financial status especially on the current economic recession to pay the stipulated amount of N 850,000 by the State Government into her coffers to avoid their houses being demolished.
