By Uche Mbah
Various groups have criticized the immediate past Commissioner for Lands and Urban Development in Enugu State, Victor Nnam, for resigning his position Friday last week.
Nnam had resigned in protest claiming it is honorable to do so.
The groups include Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, ESUT-TH, the organized labour such as the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, the Trade Union Council, TUC, and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE.
The reason for resignation, according to Nnam, was because the Directors, who are the professionals, were redeployed without recourse to him.
“The reason for my resignation is the recent removal of the professional heads of departments under me on punitive grounds for simply doing their jobs diligently”, he wrote.
“My conscience will no longer allow me to continue to serve your administration while those innocent professional Senior Civil Servants are punished for doing the right thing”.
Some of the agencies allege that Nnam was actually forced to resign because of various land deals he was allegedly involved in.
In fact, the Labour Unions said he took over a plot of land allocated to them at Independent layout Enugu. They have already filed a petition against him, and are asking security agencies to expedite action on it.
NULGE, Enugu state Chapter, said through its state President, Comrade Kenneth Ugwueze that they doubted that he wrote the resignation letter signed by him.
“If the said letter actually arose from him then he needs to search further the true meaning of diligent and also may be referring to a guilty conscience.”
According to Ugwueze, the land was allotted to them by the former governor Sullivan Chime.
“We have over the years possessed the ownership of the land with considerable works going on until recently (July 2021) when the land agents of the Commissioner for Lands and Urban Development, appeared claiming ownership of all the lands belonging to Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Nigeria Society of Engineering and two other individuals (with erected buildings) without prior notice, whatsoever.
“We wrote to His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Enugu State Rt. Hon. Dr Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi crying out for help as His Excellency is also aware of our ownership of the land. While the security agencies were still investigating and making their preliminary reports, the Commissioner hurriedly tendered his resignation letter to avert his sack since his guilty conscience was already staring him in the face claiming to be in the hospital for over some time.
‘If grabbing peoples land without due process is a diligent work done by his affected officers and his version of ‘World Best Practices in Land Administration’ then he should blame himself for the act and seek forgiveness from God and so many groups and individuals that he has subjected to untold hardship and dehumanization through his “Diligence.”
“It is ridiculous for the Hon. Commissioner for Lands and Urban Development to write such letter of resignation when the investigation is still ongoing and those his senior officers were only redeployed to give way for proper investigation of his Ministry which has been on public domain including but not limited to several invitations by the Enugu State House of Assembly. We, therefore, cry out that the investigation by the security agencies be concluded so that justice will be done,”
But critics of the government tend to allege that the groups were alleged loyalsts of the governor, and that all the noise was geared towards 2023, with the governor alleged to be nursing vice presidential ambition, though facts on ground have not confirmed such ambition.
