Police Incursion Into Land Matters

Dispute over ownership of land is an entirely civil matter. Civil matters of such nature are decided at the courts with competent jurisdiction. In Rivers State disputes over land ownership are either resolved at the High or Customary courts.
Pathetically, the police are beginning to wade into land matters without compunction about the legality of action.
Interestingly, however, when the police want to make incursion into civil matters especially land disputes it usually couches it in a manner that will belie their quest for pecuniary gains. Most times a party involved in the land dispute would be arrested on the suspicion of exhibiting conduct likely to cause a breach of public peace.
Indeed, the Police as crafty as they are, draft charges against suspects with regard to the sizes of the pockets of nominal complainants.
Sometimes, a party to a land dispute is outrageously charged with murder or cultism in order to put him in the gulag and allow time for the nominal complainant to continue development on the property in dispute.
It’s indeed important that each time a matter is reported to the police, they intend to be totally supportive of the complainant so long as he is ready to foot the bills. But the suspect is at the mercy of both the police and the nominal complainant.
Unfortunately, a bizarre situation is playing out on the land at back of Anti-Cultism Police Unit, Rukpokwu, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Purchasers of land at Eliokpokwu-Odu, Rukpokwu at the back of the Anti-cultism are faced with hydra-headed problems of multiple claims of ownership. Each claim of ownership comes with a price to pay.
Those who bought parcels of land from Rukpokwu community are also buying same from Rumuagholu. Yet still the purchasers have to pay a ransom to one Mr. Douglas Tenko who is alleged to have no business on the said land in dispute except as a land grabber.
Mr Tenko is alleged to be the head of land grabbers’ group.
According to a source, he is also allege to have a plethora of goons who are at his service.
Report has it that legitimate land owners are allegedly harassed, intimidated and oppressed by Mr. Tenko and his goons, a situation which has made victims appeal to Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba.
On the one hand, Mr. Chinedu Nnanta, the supposedly land owner was recently arrested by a team of policemen from Force headquarters, Abuja and charged to court for murder. He was remanded in Port Harcourt over the charge of murder of a man he has never met in his life.
His only grouse is that he owns the land everyone is seeking to grab.
Mr. Tenko is obviously working with policemen scattered in different locations across the nation.
In Port Harcourt he is alleged to be working with someone high ranking officers. He is also alleged to be working with men at Zone 16, Yenegoa, Bayelsa State and officers at Force headquarters, Abuja. Most police officers who are in the scheme are often compensated with parcels of land.
A plot of land in the area cost between N7, 000, 000 to N14, 000,000 depending on the positions.
Interestingly, history has it the land in dispute exclusively belongs to Mr. Chinedu Nnanta, a property he was said to have inherited from his father. It used to be marshy palm wine trees plantation which he inherited from his father.
Chinedu Nnata is in court with some members of the community over trespass to his property but the community members wouldn’t go to court to defend their matter but instead have decided to use the police to harass, intimidate and prevent legitimate owners from developing their property.
Anybody who dares to go develop his property legitimately purchased from the beneficial owner is framed up on a murder charge and remanded in prison custody. The moment the defendant abandons the property he legitimately purchased, he is left off the hook, discharged and acquitted. The scenario is benumbing and pathetic yet these things happen.
Don is alleged to be selling the plots illicitly acquired to a certain estate developing company in convinance with some members of Eliokpokwu-Odu.
However, there is growing concern that land grabbing is fast becoming a vocation for the violent men in the society especially those who believe that might is right.
But the fact that it has become commonplace doesn’t make it right. Mr. Chinoye Okoha, a Port Harcourt based lawyer who spoke to The Tide recently expressed surprise at parties to a land dispute are seeking resolution in the wrong places.
According to him, it has become worrisome that the police are beginning to wade into areas exclusively under civil jurisdiction.
He said such ugly situations did not help matters as parties were increasingly finding it difficult to resolve land disputes.
He warned that police intervention or intrusion could escalate issues between parties in a land dispute.
Mr. Okoha noted that the only way land disputes could be deescalated was to take them to court.
The lawyer also noted that law enforcement agents ought to be non-partisan in the complaints that were made to them. He said that such non-partisanship would help to build trust in the police.
Okoha remarked that the involvement of the police in many unlawful businesses was destroying trust. He described a situation where an innocent person is sent to prison by the police for self-gratification as deplorable.
He said that the picture of a man who drowned in a canal had become a cliché, much over used to implicate owners of parcels of land in the area.
He said that the likelihood of communal conflict between Eliokpokwu- Odu community in Rukpokwu and Rumuagholu was rising by the day just as the price of the land in the area was rising.
The lawyer called on the Inspector General of Police to warn the police to stay away from areas strictly under the civil jurisdiction of the courts. According to him, where the rule of law applies the self-help is abandoned.
Also speaking, another Port Harcourt based lawyer, Mr. Chijioke Agi, noted that unless government woke up to the grim realities of land grabbing, the attendant horrors would remain unspeakable.
Mr. Agi said it was disheartening that such illegality goes on in a society where law and order were entrenched.
He expressed regrets that a breakdown of law and order was often preceded by unresolved injustices predicated by blatant inability to get justice.
He said people would often ask for peace but only few people asked for justice.
Mr. Agi pointed out that the entrenchment of justice would be a necessary precursor for peace.
He said apart from police involvement in land matters, some policemen were also involving themselves in tenancy matters which he said went against the grain.
However, Royal Estate residents have raised alarm over the horrible situation they had found themselves. They issued press conferences that were relayed on both the electronic and the print media.
What is left is for both the federal and state governments to act fast to deescalate tension in the area and assuage the pains of beneficial owners of parcels of land.
Indeed, the chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Council, Hon. George Ariolu, is expected to wade into the matter to stop unlawful transactions going on in the area before everything goes berserk.

By: John Enyie