Wike admits revoking Maeba’s property in Rivers

Rivers State government has admitted revoking the certificate of a land allocated to Sen. Lee Maeba at the Golf Course axis of GRA, Port Harcourt. However, political observers have attributed the suspected attack on Maeba by Governor Nyesom Wike’s administration to his support for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

Recently, Maeba was sacked alongside other governing council members of Elechi Amadi Polytechnic, Rumola, Port Harcourt, after he (Maeba) berated Wike for working against Atiku, urging the governor to stop portraying himself as a tin god.

Explaining why the Certificate of Occupancy was revoked, the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Chris Finebone, stated, yesterday, that Maeba, like other notable personalities in Rivers, was allotted the plot under the State Urban Renewal Policy aimed at phasing out dilapidated structures and replacing them with modern buildings. He clarified that the allottee did not originally own the property but benefitted from the policy of Wike’s government.

The statement reads: “One of the terms of that allocation is that all allottees must develop the properties for own use and not to resell the land for profit or transfer the ownership, even when it is yet to be developed, as this will defeat the lofty objective of achieving a properly planned city under the government’s urban renewal policy.”

“Over a period of time, government noticed that from the time the plot was allocated to the senator until when the land title was revoked recently, Maeba abandoned the land, ostensibly to resell it, which runs against the policy of urban renewal of the government. Worse still, the abandoned plot had become home to a mountain of refuse.”

The state government noted that other beneficiaries of the scheme, some of whom are associates of Maeba, such as Austin Opara, were developing their plots apace without any interference or hindrance whatsoever.

It stated that the reason for the revocation was administrative, not political, as being promoted by Maeba and speculated by some persons. Urging law-abiding citizens and residents of Rivers to discountenance cheap propaganda concocted for political reasons to de-market the state government, particularly by politicians, the commissioner said the state remains a bastion of rule of the law and haven for investments. He also criticised former lawmaker and businessman, Ned Nwoko, on his call for Wike to be expelled from the PDP.