According to them, Ihikhaese, one of
the coordinators of the project, was claiming ownership of the entire estate.
Ihikhaese is also the former
Chairman of VON Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) chapel and Chairman of the
VON Estate Board.
The subscribers said that they were
all shocked to learn that Ihikhaese went
to Corporate Affairs Commission in Abuja and changed the name of the estate
from VON Estate to Vineyard of Nature, without the consent of the remaining
board members or landlords association.
The outraged subscribers said that
the discovery came just when they were planning to put necessary infrastructure
in place at the estate.
The Acting Chairman of the VON
Estate Landlords Association, Mr. Omoru Johnson, said that the housing estate
project started in 2003 and that all subscribers paid N60, 000 for a plot.
He said: “Aside from the N60, 000,
we also paid N50, 000 for documentation and N5000 for economy trees. This
brings the total money to N115, 000, before the plots were allocated. The
estate board later said that they wanted to fence the estate and asked us to
pay N75, 000. It was at that point I told them that I wanted to pay for more
plots. I paid additionally two plots of land for N256, 000 to make it N371, 000
as of 2003.”
Johnson disclosed that aside from
all the sundry monies, they also paid over N200, 000 for fixing of the roads.
He said that after the roads were fixed, some people started building.
Within a year, subscribers started
trying to get electricity into buildings. They wanted to contribute N50, 000
each for transformer, but the estate board asked them not to bother, that they
would take care of that. Till date, the board allegedly had not provided the
electricity. Johnson said that those of them living there now, had been living
in darkness for over 14 years.
According to Johnson, he and other
subscribers discovered that after Ihikhaese’s tenure as the chapel chairman, he
allegedly refused to submit documents of the estate to his successor.
“The management of VON, several
times, had asked him to provide documents for the estate, but Ihikhaese
refused, thus the management withheld his retirement entitlement,” recounted
Johnson.
One of the subscribers, Mr. Femi
Taiwo, said: “We got involved in the project and believed in it because it was
being handled by a corporate organization. We will find a way to ensure that
justice is done. Most importantly, everyone affected, should be involved, including
VON staff as a corporate entity.”
Taiwo noted that although he was not
a worker with VON, but he got to know about the project through his wife. His
wife used to supply goods to VON staff.
He advised those who have not be
able to get their land after making payment since 2003, to join the movement of
reclaiming the estate from an individual who was trying to act funny with them.
The present chairman of VON NUJ
chapel, Comrade Adams Momoh, said that he and his members would not sleep until
the process of reclaiming the estate had been achieved.
He said that Ihikhaese was appointed
as head of NUJ housing committee by Ms. Funke Fabugba, the former chairman of
the NUJ council back then. Momoh said that some subscribers, who paid for more
than a plot, were yet to receive their complete plots.
Narrating his own side of the story,
Ihikhaese said that he has some documents to prove that he’s the owner of the
estate. He also said that the matter had been taken to the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and charged to court, thus he didn’t have
much to say on the matter. He, however, added that VON management has set up a committee
to look into the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment