Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
Members of Orogho community in Orhionmwon Local Government Area of Edo State, on Wednesday, have called on Presco Plc not to lay claim to the 2,500 hectares of land allegedly allocated to them by the state government, saying that the community was not consulted before the transaction.
The community’s position was contained in an open letter to Presco Plc titled ‘Provocative encroachment of Orogho land by Presco Plc’, and signed by Orogho Concerned Indigenes, Elders in Council and Opinion Leaders and made available to newsmen in Benin-City, the Edo State capital.
The letter stated that members of the community was highly disturbed by the speculation that their land had been given to Presco Plc by the state government without their consent, adding that the 14,400 hectares earlier given to them had not been fully utilised.
They, therefore, said the company does not deserve another of their land coupled with the fact that they were not carried along in the process of alleged contentious acquisition of the 2,500 hectares of land.
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The letter read in part, “That the ongoing speculation that Presco Plc has been allocated 2,500 hectares by the state government is a ruse, unfounded and far from the the truth.
“The land belongs to Orogho and not even the government, any person or group of persons talk less of Delta.
“That with regard and respect to the constituted authority, there was no formal consultations with us, the state government and our Benin monarch before approval and Certificate of Occupancy was issued over the 14,400 hectares which you are yet to develop.
“Orogho land cannot be given out without our consent. For ages, it has been our ancestral land without dispute from successive governments even before the advent of the white men.”
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It explained that prior to the enactment of Land Use Decree 1978, the people of the community had had indelible ancestral rights to the farm land of which, a part of about 14,000 hectares was acquired through our royal father, Oba Erediauwa.
It added that the occasion was greeted with mutual acceptance by the people as it was aimed at developing the area and that the present area occupied by Presco was indisputably an Orogho land and does not belong to Sokponba as misconstrued by Presco Plc.
The group, in their statement, however, frowned at the wrongful naming of their farmland as Sokponba Estate instead of Orogho Estate.
It alleged that the company’s assertion that the people of the community and its environs constitute a reasonable percentage of its work force (unskilled) labour was a hoax, as Deltans make up the 80 labour, a divisive approach from the spirit of local content development policy of the federal government.
The communiqué further said that the protracted depletion of the indigenes from skilled and unskilled appointments, suggested a grand scheme of alienation of the people who own the land.