Anambra State Government in late 2018 received an intelligence report that there were a number of properties in prime locations in Enugu State, given to Anambra State during sharing of assets between the states after their creation on August twenty-seventh, 1991.
According to the report, the properties have been allowed over the decades to rot away in Enugu State, without the knowledge of the Anambra State authorities.
Based on the information, an Executive Council panel headed by the Secretary to Anambra State Government, Professor Solo Chukwulobelu, and assisted by the Managing Director of the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority, ACTDA, Venerable Amaechi Okwuosa, was set up to investigate the report.
The panel among six major discoveries affirmed that the report was credible and Anambra State Government has not derived any value or whatsoever from the properties since 1991 due to lack of record or knowledge by government about any of the properties.
As a result of the findings, Anambra State Government therefore hired the services of a firm with a record of property recovery to quietly identify the properties, take possession of them, eject the illegal occupiers and hand them over to the true owner.
That effort led to the full recovery of five of such properties, though there are indications that there could be other landed properties.
Given that these assets in Enugu, which include a seven-acre land in Independence Layout, would yield far greater value to Anambra State if there was a proper asset swap, the proposed sale was advertised in two national newspapers on January third, 2021.
Though Governor Willie Obiano was to suspend the decision to sell off the properties, the advertisement in national media was in line with the principles of transparency, accountability and due process as a less transparent government would have furtively sold the properties on sweetheart terms.
Therefore it is not surprising that Anambra State is one of the states proclaimed by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation, a leading practitioner of transparency and accountability under the World Bank-assisted States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability programme.
Some unscrupulous elements, whose secret and dark agenda over the decades have been uncovered, now launched a ferocious but failed de-marketing war against Anambra State to discredit it in the public imagination, so that it would be compelled to abandon the asset recovery.
Comments are closed for this post.