Pascal Arogorn Ibe
The crisis over ownership of hectares of land between the 11 host-communities and the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), took a different dimension, yesterday, with the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Francis Eze, vowing not to excise an inch of the land to the communities.
The VC, while addressing journalists on the matter at the Senate Chambers of the institution, said the attorney of the host-communities/estate surveyor, Chief Sam Anokam, did not state the position of the institution’s management and the levels of governments.
Eze said the quest to return the 1,000 hectares to the host-communities was not tenable because the authorities were in the mood to handle the building of the teaching hospital for medical institution that would bring developmental structures and employment opportunities to the area.
But, in his response, Anokam maintained that the VC should work in tandem with the realities, insisting that the town hall meeting on the issue, convened on January 2, 2021 and the Hearthland FM, Owerri radio programme, the stakeholders’ representatives of the monarchs spoke glowingly for the return of 1,000 hectares of land to the communities for human settlement.
Anokam opined that the host-communities had proper representation on the struggle to return 1,000 hectares of the land to them.
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