RUGA: Don’t sell more 5 hectares of land – Abia warns indigenes

Abia state government has introduced a system that directs relevant agencies to scrutinize and ascertain the purpose behind the sale of lands more than five hectares in the state. 

Mr. Uche Ihediwa, the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General of the state, said the policy made it mandatory for applications for Certificate-of-Occupancy for such a purchase.

He said: “With the present dispensation, any request for land will have to be scrutinized.

“The state government’s policy is to scrutinize it and make sure that it is not something that is convertible into Ruga. We have gone ahead to sensitize our communities to be sure that nobody sells a large quantity of land.

“There is a standing instruction in the Ministry of Lands, Survey and Urban Planning that sale of any land above five hectares will be scrutinized.”

Ihediwa added, “Sometime in September 2014, the Federal Ministry of Works, Transport and Housing requested land to build a trailer park.

“There was nothing untoward about the request by the federal government under the administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

“They were looking for 50 hectares of land in that place but we went round and discovered it was only 20 hectares.”

According to him, the negotiation was subsequently aborted and the land penciled down for a car assembly plant.