Illegal Use Of State Estates

Rivers State Ministry of Housing last
week put out a notice to order illegal
occupants of Iriebe Satellite Town to vacate the place on or before September 21, 2016. This will not be the first time government would be making effort to take over control of its own estates.
According to the notice that was also carried in the media, any person found at the estate at the expiration of the order would be arrested, prosecuted and made to pay for any damage done to the property as well as pay for the period the property had been under such person’s control.
Government is worried that such persons forced themselves into the uncompleted estates and converted them to a dens of criminals and hideouts for kidnappers, cultists and drug addicts. As usual, government stated that it would not tolerate acts of criminality or lawlessness in any part of Rivers State.
While the notice on these people and many others in State owned estates is long overdue, the seriousness of government will need to be seen. Notices like these have become normal for persons in such estates. As usual, one of two things will happen, either some government officials will smile to the bank or the boys will out-gun the officials.
It is on record that a few years ago government tried to force the illegal occupants out at Iriebe and some law enforcement agents with the government team were shot dead. After a re-enforcement, the estate was said to have been cleared. Why and how the hoodlums took over again needs to be understood.
But that is not the only estate where hoodlums had shot at and driven away government officials. After several notices to illegal occupants of Oromenike and Orije Housing Estates in the D-Line area of Port Harcourt, government enforcement teams visited three times and for three times, they were shot at and chased out.
Circumstances surrounding the D-Line estates are even more pathetic. Government had sold the flats to individuals but had lacked the power to hand over keys to the buyers till date. Before they could handover, hoodlums broke in and occupied. A few of the buyers that took possession of their flats went through so much, spent extra money, and years to get their flats.
Like the Iriebe Estate, the Oromenike and Orije Estates are dens of criminals and an imposing health risk in the centre of Port Harcourt. In addition to destroying the property where they occupy, they have taken up all open spaces to build illegal shanties where all manner of illegalities take place, including drug trade.
The last administration was said to have released some millions of Naira to facilitate the removal of the illegal occupants, who had even dared to sue government when they were ordered to leave. After that, nothing happened till date.
The Tide hopes that the present government under Chief Nyesom Ezenwo Wike will do everything to discourage lawlessness, and neither pamper criminals nor watch as misfits deprive Rivers people of their right of taking possession of property sold to them by the Rivers State Government more than 10 years ago. This is happening even when most of the buyers have completed payment.
We are surprised that for all these years the Ministry of Housing has failed to understand that it owes an obligation not only to always secure its property, but to also physically hand over such property to their bonafide owners unencumbered. It is criminal to collect money and not give the flats.
Apart from the breach committed by the Ministry in those transactions, its negligence also compromises the peace and security of the State. The estates have provided cover for criminals in an high-brow area like the D-Line and greatly added to the security concerns in the State capital.
In the light of aggravated health and security concerns in Rivers State, government cannot afford to be indifferent in these issues that have become more than scandalous.