It also refuted the claim that the agitation of the community has to do with the discovery of mineral resources in the area, stating that the issue is about the attempt by a monarch, the Okuokpellagbe, to re-draw of Okpella and excise it from its motherland.

“We are part and parcel of Okpella; in fact, we are part of Oteku, which is one of the two ruling houses in Okpella; we are no settlers; we are children of the direct son of Okpella. The Okuokpellagbe has been doing all sorts of things for over 40years, going into our lands and doing whatever he likes with it, but this claim that we are no longer Okpella by him is what has fuelled our agitation, nothing else,” Chief Charles Adogah, SAN, President of Komunio Development Union, said.

He explained his community’s involvement in the crisis tearing apart the cement-producing town of Okpella. Apart from the proof of the January 28, 1965 Mid West Gazette, entitled: ‘Public Lands Acquisition Law’, which read: ‘Notice is hereby given that the following land at Kominio-Okene Road, Komunio, in the Afemai Division of the Benin Province, Mid-Western Nigeria, is required by the government for public purposes absolutely’, to show that it is the officially recognized owner of the land, Adegah presented a copy of a 2014 judgment in the community’s favour by the High Court, Agenebode, Edo State, in which the court declared the revocation notice of the land, dated December 24, 2013, irregular, unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect whatsoever. According to him, Komunio’s entitlement to adequate compensation for the land before it could be compulsorily acquired and the setting aside of the purported revocation notice was published in the Vanguard Newspaper of January 11, 2014.

Stating that the Justice V.O.A. Oviawe judgment of November 18, 2014 is yet to be challenged or set aside, Adogah and counsel to the community, Dr. Ayuba Giwa, of A.O. Giwa & Associates, said Komunio was represented as claimants in the suit it filed against the Governor of Edo State and the Attorney General to ask for the reliefs by four of its illustrious sons- Hon. Charles Ikhumesomi, Johnson Afemikhe, Pastor Eshioramhe Eshioguemue and Magnus Odion Philip.

“What they are claiming now is the land close to the cement factory the Mid-West gazette earlier mentioned to have been published on January 28, 1965, clearly showing that the land belongs to Komunio. It did not mention Iddo or Imiegiele. Therefore, the lands, where you have the mineral deposits, are behind, towards the North-East. Their allegation that Iddo and Imiegiele own the land is not true. Ogriga is part of Komunio; they have no existence of their own. Ogriga is just a settlement in Komunio, they are right if they say that they are co-owners of the land because all of us are Komunios”, Adogah and Giwa stated.

“Iddo, now issuing threats to Komunio, was not captured by the origin and genealogy of Okpella documented by the colonial masters in November 1931. The colonial masters, who authored the document, had no interest of their own to serve and there was no issue of mineral deposits then. If they care to know also, four years after the documentation of the Okpella genealogy, precisely 1935, the clan map of Kukuruku was drawn by the colonial masters. It showed Okpella to be made up of two sub-clans, Ogute and Oteku. Imiegiele was in the Ogute sub-clan while Kumunio and their brethren, who migrated from Ituri-egba, close to North Ibie and now call themselves Iddo, were in the Oteku sub-clan. Only this year also, the Ogiriga people re-affirmed, in a letter, that they were part and parcel of Kumunio. Then, you ask, at what stage did Imiegiele, from a different sub-clan and Ogiriga, that is part of Komunio and Iddo that was not in the1931 genealogy of Okpella, miraculously together now become overlords to Komunio?

“That apart, in the statute defining the traditional ruler ship of Okpella, two ruling houses were recognized by law, Ogute and Oteku Ruling Houses. Imiegiele is in Ogute Ruling House. The Oteku Ruling House has two component parts, including the Kuminio part, which comprises the Ogiriga and Iddo component. It, therefore, beats imagination how a legally recognized component part of a ruling house can be a tenant of another component part within and outside that ruling house. If these have not sufficiently put a lie to their claims, the gazette Declaration of the Customary Law of Okpella still exists for all to see.

Kumunio had, at no time, taken Jack Oba to court for calling them tenants and lost the case. We challenge anyone in possession of such a court judgment to come out with it. In fact, we are aware of a judgment in a case between Dirisu Aliu of Imioko-Ukhuomunyio and Alhaji Sumaina Aruna of Iddo and another between Aliu and Osuma Audu, decided on November 22, 1994 by the Ukpilla District Customary Court. The court, in that case, decided that the land, occupied by the Nigerian Army along the New Road, belonged to the plaintiff’s father, Aliu Unuakhe (Agbadamachi), of Imioko- Ukhuomunyio. What happened these past years is that the Komunio people were interested in peace and good neighbourliness and did not bother over Okuokpellagbe, Alhaji A. Y. E. Dirisu’s actions, including the signing of concession papers. Now, he wants to drive us out of our land. We can’t take that and we decided to boycott activities at his palace and he has now gotten a section of Ogriga, Iddo and Imiegiele to say they own our land. You cannot call people slaves and expect them to be quiet. How do you call aborigines tenants and you expect them to fold their hands?”

Adogah restated the observation of the Kumunio people, at their conference, that the BUA Cement Group, which they commended for its huge investment in the area, was discriminating against their youths in its recruitment exercises.

The community, in accordance with its resolution at that conference, he said, had mandated a 10-man delegation to deliver a protest letter to the firm’s management, arguing that employment for youths by the BUA Cement Group ought to be a corporate social responsibility to its host.

As the community has resolved to take its destiny in its own hands in a process of self-determination and among others pursue with the Edo State Government the creation of its

own separate clan out of Okpella, the Kumunio Development Union President said the community will pursue this goal side by side with massive development of the place, beginning with an education programme for its children to raise the Human Development Index (HDI) of the community. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/11/dispute-over-edo-cement-plant-site-deepens/