By Godwin Otang
There is a subsisting controversy over the rightful ownership of 32 hectares of Cocoa Estate located at Abonita Cocoa Estate in Etung Local Government Area of Cross River State.
Findings by our reporter show that a certain Mr. Mark Prince is accused by a former state government aid on Cocoa Development and Control Oscar Ofuka, to be claiming entitlement to the 32 hectares of the tropical crop, claiming that his family got ownership of the Cocoa Estate long before an alleged encroachment by the state government.
Meanwhile, the Cross River State Government through the State High Court sitting in Ikom before his lordship Hon. Justice Eno Ebri, on July 5, 2022, ordered that Cocoa lease allocation under the smallholder scheme will not be taken over from lessees not even by the government or its agents outside terms of its lease.
The court had in Suit No: HM/73/ 2020 ordered that the 32 hectares in Abonita Cocoa Estate, Etung LGA, allegedly ceded to Mark Prince’s family is still the property of the state government.
However, the immediate past Special Adviser to Cross River State Government on Cocoa Development and Control, Dr. Oscar Ofuka has called on Governor Bassey Otu and the 10th House of Assembly to take action in quick recovery of the 32 hectares allegedly ceded by Mr. Mark Prince to himself without respect to the Court Order which according to him (Oscar Ofuka), restrains him from encroaching into the 32 hectares of cocoa plots.
“There is a valid Court Order with Suit No: HM/73/2020 restraining him (Mark Prince) from taking over the 32 hectares. The state should seek redress in Court for contempt. If that is not done definitely a precedent has been set up for any other person to rise up and take over Government land. If this persists, it would become survival of the fittest, “Ofuka warned.
Dr. Ofuka further explained that paragraph 3 of the said judgment stated that 32 hectares in Abonita Cocoa in Etung LGA of Cross River State allegedly ceded to Mark Prince’s family is still a property of the state government stressing that the court had ordered Mark Prince’s family to vacate the 32 hectares.
“I charge the State Governor to send security men to protect Government farms from balkanization so as to block that loophole where the Government is about to lose one of its sources of revenue. If the situation is not urgently arrested, we may likely not have what is called Government Cocoa Estate again as more trespassers are warming up to make encroachment into the estate.
“If you allow a single individual to do away with Government property, there is a tendency for many who are likely going to make encroachment into the Cocoa Estate to take ownership of the Estate from Government: As a critical stakeholder in the Cocoa sector, it would be bad if I sit down, fold my arms and watch things go wrong and allow people destroy the strides which we recorded in the Cocoa sector.”
Confirming the incident in a telephone conversation an aggrieved contractor Mr. Njor Asu who claimed to be one of the contractors at Abonita Cocoa Estate, decried the takeover of the 32 hectares by hoodlums.
He said, “We were chased away from the estate by a certain individual aided by soldiers from Afi Barracks Ikom. I ran alongside my workers and abandoned the heap of Cocoa pods worth millions of Naira and hoodlums took possession of my Cocoa and made away with the produce.”
However, in his reaction to the issue, Mr. Mark Prince Leku, stated that the cocoa plots that had been in contention were his father’s farmland encroached into by the State Government as far back as decades ago.
He said that the 32 hectares originally belonged to his family, insisting that it was the government that released the Cocoa plots to his family after he discovered some papers on the property.
When contacted, the Army Public Relations Officer (PRO), Cross River State, Captain Dorcas Aluko, only said she will get back to our reporter after findings from the Afi Barracks in Ikom, where it is alleged that soldiers left to aid the take over of some Cocoa plots: “I will get back to you once I get to the commander of Afi Barracks Ikom before I can say anything”. Army PRO stated.