By Dennis Agbo 

The Lawmaker representing Nkanu East State constituency in the Enugu State House of Assembly, Hon. Okechukwu Mbah has disclosed the reasons why the Enugu State government went and stopped work at the ongoing construction of Biomass Based Methanol Plant by the Energy commission of Nigeria in the state.

According to Mbah, the Minister of Innovation Science and Technology, Chief Uche Nnaji tried to use the siting of the project as a Camouflage for landgrab which the Amanguze community in Nkanu East local government area resisted.

The lawmaker stated that the Minister had initially used a disguise of setting up a factory to acquire their people’s land illegally to be used for personal business but was vehemently resisted by their people because he had no claim to the land.

“When this failed and after he (Nnaji) became a minister, he came back to the land again with a purported federal government project all in a bid to take over their people’s land which has been on dispute between Amagunze community in Nkanu East LGA and Akpugo community in Nkanu West LGA.”

Mbah further narrated that Minister Nnaji behaved more suspiciously when to refused to announce his attraction of the project to neither the Government of Enugu State nor to any of the council governments of Nkanu East or Nkanu West.

Mbah blamed  Nnaji for being aware of the dispute surrounding the land and did not make appropriate consultation before seeking to site the project in Amagunze land and went ahead to name the area as belonging to Akpugo community which he said irked the people of Amanguze who cried out to Enugu State government before an order was given to stop work at the cite of the plant construction.

Addressing newsmen in his office, in Enugu, the lawmaker pleaded with President Bola Tinubu to call the  Minister to order and investigate why such project cited to Nkanu East local government council headquarters Amagunze was named as being situated in Nkanu West LGA.

“There was no due diligence on the part of the minister. We are not against the federal government project coming into our community, infact we have more vast land for any project, but due process should be followed.

“Again, for such a gigantic a project that will have waste products, there was no Environmental Impact Assessment made before siting the project. These are the reasons why we sealed the project at the moment.

“We’re also asking the Enugu State Boundary Committee to step in to address the demarcation between the two communities in two different local government councils to save conflict in the area,” Mbah pleaded.