Emuobosa Uloho, a cleric based in Warri, Delta State, has accused James Manager, a former senator of Delta South District, of failing to honour a court-sanctioned settlement in a protracted land dispute.
According to Uloho, the conflict started in 2016 when the senator took over a piece of land belonging to his family. This action led to a three-year court battle between Uloho’s family and Senator Manager.
Uloho said the court issued notices annually, stating that judgment would be delivered, but the senator proposed an out-of-court settlement before the judgment could be passed.
“Before the settlement process began, I faced several threats to my life,” Uloho told FIJ. “Two publications were even made about the threats I received.”
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Court document featuring Uloho and Manager as claimant and defendant respectively.
He said the settlement process started, but they could not make progress. The threats he received intensified.
In 2021, Manager’s aide invited Uloho to the senator’s residence. At the meeting, Uloho said, the senator offered a monetary settlement and promised two employment slots for Uloho’s family, facilitated by the community’s president general. But most of these promises were not formally documented in the terms of settlement, Uloho said.
“We fulfilled all the terms of the settlement, and the money was paid. The agreement stated that the land rightfully belonged to my family, and he was to pay N6 million as an acknowledgement that the land belonged to us. After this, he was to meet my family to give him a new deed to convert the land to his. This was stated in the settlement, but he ignored each of the terms,” Uloho recalled.
Court document
“He also agreed to negotiate for a new deed to convert the land from leasehold to freehold. This senator, a lawyer, should know better. Since then, he has not answered us. We consulted a king who spoke to the senator but to no avail.”
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Uloho said that he once met with Manager, who threatened to deal with him. But he reacted and told the senator to do whatever he pleased.
“But when I wanted to go, he asked me to sit down and then asked what exactly I wanted. I told him I wanted him to fulfil the terms of the settlement, which are binding and accepted by the court,” Uloho told FIJ.
“Senator Manager asked why he paid the out-of-court money. I explained that he paid for us to withdraw the case out of court as the rightful owner of the land, and then he would negotiate with us to convert from leasehold to freehold and for my family to give him genuine papers.
“He asked if his lawyer knew this, and we said yes. When we called the lawyer in his presence, he confirmed that we were right and said he thought that the senator had fulfilled all requirements. And that was it. Since 2021, he has done nothing.”
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Uloho said that in May, Manager, through his lawyer, offered an unspecified amount of money and said they would do the right thing but did nothing.
“Then, he also said that in four days, they’d do the right thing, but to date, the lawyer has done nothing but give me the runaround. After that, I continued to receive threats. My life is on the line,” he explained.
When FIJ called Barrister Benedict Ekpese, Manager’s lawyer, he kept telling FIJ he was on his way and would call our reporter. FIJ sent him a text message on Tuesday but he had yet to respond at press time.
FIJ also repeatedly called Manager, but he did not answer his phone. He had not responded to FIJ’s text message at press time.
The post After Grabbing Land From Warri Pastor, Senator James Manager Refuses to Honour Terms of Settlement appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.