Mrs Ayogu said Nkem Owoh warned her in 2008 not to build on the land she claims her late husband bought, registered and left to her and their children before his death in 2004, but she went ahead and built a bungalow, and on Sunday September 30th Nkem Owoh allegedly had the house pulled down.
Mrs Ayogu's story when you continue...
“The property was bought same year my husband died and was registered in his name. We started developing it until my husband took ill and later died, about three months after we relocated from where we were living. Some years later I discovered that the documents to the property were missing. I searched everywhere but could not find them. I went to the man who sold the land to us and he advised that I report to the state Ministry of Lands. I went there and they asked me to put up a newspaper publication on the missing document, which I did in about three different newspapers.
“I first went to the police and obtained police extract before the loss of document was published. I also put a caveat on the property so that no buyer would come in case people attempted to use it for fraud. We were living at Egwuaga Street then, so we relocated to 9, Ikpeama Street in Trans-Ekulu, Enugu. The land registrar gave me new documents covering the property and he advised me to be vigilant and look after my land.
“In 2006, Nkem Owoh, popularly known as Osuofia and some people came to ask me who I was and if I was the owner of the property. I told him yes. They left and I didn’t see them for some time until one day he resurfaced claiming ownership of the land and said I have to stop work on the site because at that time I had started building. I tried to inform him that I had neither sold the land nor authorized its sale to anybody but he insisted the plot belonged to him.
Because my salary was not enough to pay our rent, school fees and our general upkeep, I felt it was proper to construct a small house on the land so we can could move in and begin to save what would have been our house rent. I began constructing the house four years ago, I even had to take loan to enable us finish the house. The building had been practically completed. I had roofed the house and was about hanging the doors and windows when Nkem Owoh and his agents demolished the house.”
Meanwhile Nkem Owoh is claiming he had no hand in the house being demolished. He said
Meanwhile the National Human Rights Commission has taken up the case.“This woman is going to put herself in trouble. I bought a land and the land is causing trouble between the woman and her husband’s first wife. They are struggling over the same piece of land, so why would the woman say it was me that demolished her house? Why is she trying to scandalise my name when she knows there is a family dispute over the land? I don’t know anything about the demolition. I bought the property but they are having problems there, I mean the two wives. Why wouldn’t this woman go to court and sort these things out once and for all?”
.png)
