– Commission from Yaounde in Limbe on Wednesday
BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
The Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure (MINCAF) Henri Eyebe Ayissi, according to information reaching The SUN, will be sending a two-member delegation to Limbe on Tuesday, October 10, 2023 to ascertain the ownership of the disputed land between the CEO of Gigal Towers Behind Police New Town, Eric Igwacho and the family of Ndonfack Etienne.
Ndonfack Etienne head of the Nganju family says he had petitioned the minister, opposing claims by the Fako administration that the land was marshy and is therefore state property.
“I wrote an opposition letter, which the minister replied and said a team from Yaounde will come and investigate who actually is the rightful owner of the land,” he said.
On July 14, 2023, the Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure, Henri Eyebe Ayissi, dispatched letters to Eric Igwacho, Ndonfack Etienne and the Divisional Delegation of MINCAF, notifying them about the pending mission.
In the letter addressed to the Fako Divisional Delegate of MINCAF, Minister Ayissi said the envoy will be coming “to ascertain the real owner of this parcel of land”.
It will consist of two officials of the Sub-Directorate of National Lands at MINCAF, Boyogueno Christiane and Youchiya Chupanje Colette Flora.
Eric Igwacho is reported to have brought a bulldozer to start working on the 038.6-meter-square plot located in New Town, Limbe I Subdivision.
This is despite stiff opposition from members of the Nganju family, who say they have owned the land since 1986.
Ndonfack Etienne Nganju, told The SUN that Igwacho’s bulldozer “destroyed my foundation, my crops, and his workers beat up my mother, who’s a widow.”
He added that Igwacho, who is a successful businessman based in the USA, has been struggling to buy the plot from the family to no avail.
“He went behind and manipulated the administration of Fako. They wrote a letter to the Minister of State Property, Surveys, and Land Tenure stating that our compound is a marshy area and, thus, a state land. They told the minister to give it to Eric Igwacho,” Ndonfack said.
Claim of ownership by Ndonfack Etienne
Evidence The SUN obtained from the Nganju Family reveals that the disputed plot has a Land Certificate issued by the then Limbe Subdivisional Officer on July 5, 1994.
The certificate grants ownership of the land to Mr David Nganju Akawong, the deceased head of the Nganju Family.
The land also possesses a Property Attestation document signed by the then Paramount Chief of Limbe Subdivision, Chief F.B. Manga Williams, on March 14, 1986.
Based on documents The SUN obtained, the deceased head of the Nganju Family, David Nganju, bought the land from Limunga Ewonda Otilia of New Town Limbe on March 13, 1986, at the cost of FCFA 800,000.
However, no meaningful construction has been done on the land for the past 37 years.
Enter Eric Igwacho claims on the piece on land
However, Igwacho, who is now ‘forcefully’ occupying the land, presented a decree of ownership signed by the Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure (MINCAF) Henri Eyebe Ayissi to The SUN justifying that he owns the land that it is State land which has been accorded to him by the State.
He added that he spent over FCFA 1 million to do soil testing to detect if the land can carry on the structure he intends to build on the land instructed by the Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure (MINCAF) Henri Eyebe Ayissi.
The businessman Eric Igwacho has continued working on the land and has been preventing members of the Nganju Family from making use of the plot.
