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By Dirisu Yakubu

Frontline rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has called on the good people of Enugu state not to allow sponsors of a campaign of falsehood and calumny against Dr Victor Chukwuemeka Nnam, former Commissioner of Lands and Urban Planning in the state, affect their respect for him, following Nnam’s recent resignation.

The rights group said the people “must not allow sponsors of this campaign of falsehood and calumny to further rubbish Dr Nnam’s hard-fought spotless reputation to achieve their evil plans.”

In a statement, jointly signed by HURIWA’s national coordinator; Comrade Emmanual Onwubiko and Media Affairs Director; Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA expressed surprise that “a hodgepodge of groups made up of concerned government agencies, organized labour Unions and some others have devoted resources to run media narratives in the major national dailies to keep desperately clutching at straws at every turn.”

The statement read in part: “Currently, they are using a compromised high profile activists and media platforms to launch personal attacks against the former commissioner. To achieve their nefarious objectives, they have allegedly forged fake documents and allegedly induced unprofessional media platforms which lack integrity to publish unverified falsehoods against the institution.

“They have also tried to instigate the security agencies and the Enugu State House of Assembly through baseless unsubstantiated reports based on the same fake allegations which they have sponsored in the social media.

“The allegations have ranged from his resignation being an avenue to evade prosecution over land mismanagement to land racketeering. Significantly, despite the media campaign and reports, no evidence of impropriety has been found”, HURIWA stated.

Reacting to some of these allegations, HURIWA commended the former commissioner for toeing the part of resignation in the midst of alleged undue interference from various quarter “which is uncommon to politicians in Africa.”

HURIWA recalled that Dr Nnam, who was appointed commissioner by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi in 2019, had in his resignation letter dated October 9, 2021, stated that he resigned because of a proposal to reform land administration in the state was turned down without any reason given.

“The former commissioner had been battling with some of his former colleagues and recently, with the state House of Assembly over allegations of land racketeering.

“In the resignation letter titled: ‘Letter of the resignation of my appointment as the Commissioner for Lands and Urban Development, Enugu State,’ Nnam cited the recent removal of the professional heads of a department under him as a reason for his resignation.

“The letter which he personally addressed to the governor, partly read: ‘Sir, when you appointed me the Commissioner of Lands and Urban Development, Enugu State in 2019, I accepted the appointment with the hope that I was going to be allowed to bring onboard world best practice in land administration.

“I immediately proposed the establishment of a Geographic Information System, GIS, land administration system to enable the ministry to stamp out land grabbers and create investors’ confidence in our land system. The proposal was rejected without explanation to date.

“However, the reason for my resignation is the recent removal of the professional heads of the department under me on punitive grounds for simply doing their jobs diligently. 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”, HURIWA quoted.

Again, reacting to the case of the Enugu State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), HURIWA noted that though the matter is already a subject of litigation and as such there are things that may not be said.

However, the former Commissioner has challenged that NULGE with all the existing documents in the ministry, do not have any title to the land.

HURIWA again quoted Dr Nnam thus: “If NULGE claims to be the rightful owners of the said land, why are they afraid of the court? Why can’t they go to court to prove their case instead of running from pillar to post looking for nonexistent documents? This is the main reason professional staff of the ministry were redeployed because they refused to give in to the pressure from NULGE and their likes.

“It is common knowledge that when someone’s property is encroached on, the person has the court to run to but in this situation, NULGE that claims ownership did not go to court. Rather, they decided to use powerful people in government to obstruct justice.