Anselem Anokwute
The embattled President of Imo State Almagamated Market Traders Association (ISAMATA) Hon. Emmanuel Ezeanochie and the Traditional Ruler of Irete Autonomous Community in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, HRH Eze Ethelbert Ekwelibe has been allegedly accused of building and selling of stalls numbering over 50 shops at Community Primary School Irete playing ground.
Otimkpunews gathered that the people of Irete are currently in serious crisis as a result of the selling of the primary school ground and conversion of the education facility into a market place by the ISAMATA leadership under Ezeanochie and his cohorts using a developer Anico Group to denied the School Children their playing grounds and converting the remaining space into a market Dustin bin point.
Narrating her ordeal The School Head Teacher, Lolo Ngozi Nwanebo, said that, she is tired of complaining about the issue of the traditional ruler with the former President General and the Youth leader in conniviance to take away the school premises in a gimmicks of building a perimeter or dwarf fence to protect the school compound from invaders but went ahead to build lock up stalls and shared amongst themselves without giving the primary school any stall.
According to her the school has remained a shadow of itself with dilapidated infrastructure and dustbin encroachment challenges.
She maintained that the building of the stalls have linked the school premises to Afor Irete market making the entire area security porous and unconducive for school children and pupils for their learning environment.
With all the classrooms suffering from licking roofs from primary One to Six being an eyesore and unhygienic for the little children. She explained that hoodlums suspected to be workers of the Purported Developer earlier on vandalized the Story building Education Trust Fund ETF donated Aluminum roofing sheets leaving the children to study under complete sun and in the rain. She lamented.
Lolo Nwanebo also pointed out that unauthorized illegal Dustin bin encroachment from Afor Irete market traders has remained a major challenges to posit alot of dangers to the health of the school children and pupils in the Community Primary School. AS the Head Teacher, and a woman Leader in the Community has raised several alarm over the deplorable conditions of the school to all the Major platforms and Stakeholders in the community as she has currently Washed her hand off from the social malady to allow the owners of the school and the State government to take drastic measures to stop further land grabbing.
She accused the Traditional Ruler, Eze Ethelbert Ekwelibe of being the brain behind the school predicament, building and selling of the school premises or stalls and called on the Imo State Primary School Education Management Board as she has earlier informed the State of the ugly development in the Community Primary School Irete Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State to come to their rescue.
Responding to Newsmen in his Palace, HRH Eze Ethelbert Ekwelibe said that the agreement to build the stalls was generally acceptable by the Community Stakeholders not a personal interest and pointed out that, when they conceived the plans to build a perimeter or dwarf fence at the school premises was as a result of prevalent insecurity orchestrated by the unsuccessful attack on one of the teachers by unknown gunmen.
And in the view of peace and tranquility the Community decided to build fence to protect the school and later through the State Education Management Board received approval before it was changed by the Owerri West Local Government Area Umuguma.
The change in the original approval from the State Education Management Board prelude building of 50 Lock up stalls. We accepted to give the school 30 percentage but it later changed when we have a Memorandum of Understanding with ISAMATA leadership and the Developer Partners which unanimously gave approval to a Developer on sixty, Twenty and Twenty Agreement basics. “As a traditional ruler I am not personally favoured or collected any special store as the developer and the government (ISAMATA) has taken their own allocation or share as we agreed the developer also put a gate in between the stalls for the school premises”.
Continue, in his words, “Yes, we all agreed to build the stalls in the school premises against the perimeter wall to use it as a protection fencing to scare invaders but our initial plan failed because we couldn’t build the stalls on our own so we sorted out and attracted the leadership of Imo State Almagamated Market Traders Association ISAMATA which graciously approved and gave us a market developer (Anico Group) on the MOU to the Developer to take Sixty percent while the local Government Area and the State takes twenty percent and while Irete Autonomous Community equally take twenty percent respectively.
Out of the 50 stalls, i was given one shop for the throne and nothing else.
I never sold any school premises or land as envisaged. But only participated in accordance with the community leadership decisions to convert the perimeter wall into commercial use to help in the development of the community”. Eze Ethelbert Ekwelibe said.
He further produced necessary and available documents under his custody to explained vigorously on how the business was done for the interest of the community and stated that there was no issue of fraud associated with the building and Development of the stalls.
All attempts made to get the side of the ISAMATA leadership proves abortive as the Cell phone number of the President Emmanuel Ezeanochie could not connect at the time of filling the report.
