Breaking: Ruga Has Finally Landed in Abia State With 60 Full Loaded Trailers

Reporter: Igboanugo Chukwunonso Samuel

Emmanuel Ugwu in Umuahia

It has emerged that the federal government

triggered RUGA alarm in Abia State when it

was discovered that a trailer park planned

for Arungwa in Osisioma local government

was ‘unusual’.

The trailer park was designed to include

police post, hospital, bank, hotel and school

hence people started suspecting that it was

a RUGA project in disguise.

The traditional ruler of Umuobasi, Professor

Sunday Owualah made this known in a

statement he issued to debunk “the false

accusation” by Abia State Government that

he had engaged in “malicious insinuation”

that land had been designated for RUGA

project in the state.

Abia government had on July 17, 2019

alleged through the attorney general and

commissioner for justice, Uche Ihediwa that

Eze Owualah was crying wolf over RUGA

and issued a seven-day ultimatum to

apologise to the state government or face

legal action.

But the embattled royal father whose

domain is contiguous to Arungwa, the host

of the suspected RUGA project, said that he

only got involved in the controversy when

the royal father of Arungwa, Eze Ndukwe

Enwereji invited him to mediate in the

communal dispute over the land acquired by

government for trailer park.

He explained that the root cause of the

dispute was that Enwereji’s subjects were

unhappy that he “authorised (land)

acquisition by government without wider

due consultation and unanimity with the

larger segment of his community,

particularly the elites.”

Prof. Owualah said that Enwereji had

lamented that he was being maligned and

falsely accused by his people despite the

amenities that trailer park was going to

host.

“It was at this stage that I cautioned there

was need for circumspection in view of the

unfolding developments around cattle

colony and cattle route in Nigeria presently,”

he said.

“My word of caution stemmed from the size

of land involved and the facilities to be

hosted in the Trailer Park”.

The royal father said that he had on April

25, 2019 while Ihediwa was still

commissioner for lands “shared my

concerns and fears with him for the size of

project in a land-scarce environment”.

He further stated that he equally raised the

issue of possible breach of the purpose

clause in the long in view of the unfolding

events the country, adding that it was

wrong for the commissioner to accuse him

of raising false alarm on RUGA.

Apparently not satisfied with Ihediwa’s

answers to the posers surrounding the

trailer park the royal father said that he

drew the attention of Ngwa Social Club to

the issue on May 26, 2019 via a WhatsApp

group.

According to him, the NSC would “help me

interrogate this project at the appropriate

quarters because of the Club’s strong

stakeholder status in the affairs of Ngwa

land over the years”.

Eze Owualah stoutly defended his action

and justified his interest in the trailer park

affair even though Eze Enwereji had failed to

properly sell the project to his Arungwa

people.

He said: “As a traditional ruler whose

Community is contiguous to Arongwa

Autonomous Community, particularly the

two villages in the location of the proposed

Trailer Park, I consider it my moral and

ethical duty to protect the overall interest of

my people and others resident in it now or

in the future.

“That is exactly what I did in taking up the

task of drawing attention to the unintended

consequences of this decision that might

affect generations now and those yet

unborn so that proper and due consideration

is given to it by all stakeholders and not

just only HRM Eze Enwereji and his

supporters”