From Yakubu Mustapha Minna
Tension heightened in Piyame Village of Minna Emirate in Shiroro local government of Niger state following a Supreme Court judgment which favored a rich man Kabulu Pada Gunu as the sole owner of the village and farm lands against the 260 years resident villagers.
The villagers, however, called for urgent government intervention to avoid bloodshed that is currently eminent in the community, insisted that they will remain to defend themselves with their last blood.
Kabulu Pada however headed to Supreme Court Abuja after he lost the case to the villagers at Appeal Court Abuja on 29th March, 2004 presided over by Justice Merry Peter Odili who had sent a delegation to access the village before his ruling in favour of the villagers.
It could be recalled that the case started since 1967 at Minna High Court which was then won by the said Kabulu Pada who a very wealthy man from Gunu.
Apparently, on 31st June, 2017 the Supreme Court presided over by Justice Tanko Mohammed with four others passed judgement in favour of Kabulu Pada Gunu who recently because of the judgement have allegedly confiscated the villagers farm produce of about 36 trucks of yam tubbers and other harvests.
It was reliably gathered that, the villagers now beg to eat due to the action taken by the said winner of case at the Supreme Court, the village about 50km from Minna consist of about 20 houses with a population of over 200 people including children.
The village spokesman, Adamu Yerima expressed shock over the verdict of the SupremeCourt saying that the village has existed for 260 years and somebody now claimed the ownership of their lands, expressed fear that if they are forced to leave the village they have nowhere to relocate to.
“We will remain to defend with our last blood, we don’t have anywhere to go our grand fathers, parents were buried here, where can we go to now and do what” he stated.
A villager Dada Yerima has appealed to the state and local governments to as a matter of urgency intervene in the awaiting crisis before it escalate to bloodshed.
The son of the acclaimed land owner, Tanko Kabulu in an interview denied taking possession of their farm produce as claimed, adding that the farmlands were leased out to the villagers by their grand fathers urging them to relocate or will seek court injunction to evacuate them from the land to enable themselves start building structures and farm activities on the lands.
