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Ex-lawmaker, Ned Nwoko Spends Millions Of Naira To Install ‘Figurehead’ Monarch To Support His Land-grabbing Business

September 6, 2021

Nwoko had used his influence to remove the former monarch of the town, Chukwunonso Nwoko for opposing his attempt to forcefully acquire additional 90 hectares of land from an area earmarked for all indigenes of the community.

A former House of Representatives member, Ned Nwoko has expended millions of naira to ensure that one Solomon Eziokwubundu Nwoko is recognised by the Delta State Government as the King of Idumeje Ugboko village in Aniocha North Local Government Area of the state, SaharaReporters has gathered.

Nwoko had used his influence to remove the former monarch of the town, Chukwunonso Nwoko for opposing his attempt to forcefully acquire additional 90 hectares of land from an area earmarked for all indigenes of the community.

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The former lawmaker in 2020 also asked the police to arrest Chukwunonso and ransack the palace.

The former king, who was charged with murder as orchestrated by Nwoko, was later released on the orders of the Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa.

A source familiar with the police operations had told SaharaReporters that it was Nwoko who informed the police command in Asaba that the palace was heavily loaded with sophisticated weapons of war.

Subsequently, Chukwunonso was in January 2021 illegally removed by some traditional rulers in Aniocha LGA who recommended Solomon as the new monarch for Idumuje-Ugboko kingdom.

However, SaharaReporters gathered that the Delta State Government failed to recognise Solomon.

He was also not given a staff of office by the government since he was picked in January.

“Nwoko is just a pretender and a hypocrite who uses his supposed wealth and money-induced contacts to intimidate others. People in the community are scared of saying the truth about him because of the stipends he hands out to them occasionally,” a source told SaharaReporters.

“Presently, the main reason why he is fighting for Obi Solomon to be installed as king is just to ensure that the land tussle is kept under wraps and his land-grabbing acts remain unchallenged. 

“Presently, he just sponsored a write-up as part of the arrangements with his contacts in the government to give Obi Solomon the staff of office. 

“He just paid millions of naira to a lawyer for them to start the legal process as requested for the confirmation. Funnily enough, despite all these, Solomon, the lyase, the Odogwu, and several others are barely able to feed as he has stopped taking care of them.

“He has them in a strangle hold and they are scared of saying anything negative about him. Exposing Nwoko’s actions all through the crises to date leaves one with only one impression about him. That he truly has no conscience.

“How can a man who claims to have love for his people use the security agency to hunt down his own kinsmen and have them bound and imprisoned without a shred of compassion? How can one single individual fight tradition and culture and his own King to a standstill and use everything at his disposal to prevent him from receiving his staff of office if not a man without a heart and soul who caused scores of his kinsmen to suffer untold trauma and horror because of his greed for his community land?

“In 2017, the ldumuje-Ugboko community was nearly wiped out because of only one individual's greed to acquire almost half of the community's land. Those who believed in him either paid with their lives lost everything they owned, houses, businesses and are now a shadow of their former self. 

“The yet-to-be crowned King Obi Solomon is barely feeding from hand to mouth, the Iyase is down with a stroke, and the Odogwu is suffering from Parkinson's disease. They have all been abandoned to fend for themselves any which way they can all because they made the mistake of trusting Ned and standing by him in his greedy quest to acquire almost half of the community's land.

“The million-dollar question is if a self-acclaimed billionaire and philanthropist cannot have compassion for people who stood by him to possess their community land, where then is his good heart and philanthropic spirit if he refuses to fulfill his promises to media organisations who granted him free access and he still refuses outright to pay for media jobs executed for him by media organisations and media personnel, then such an individual can go to any length to deprive people of their joy and peace while still pretending to be a philanthropist. 

“No matter the millions Ned throws about in public for personal satisfaction, no matter how he tries to deceive the world by claiming to be on a personal quest to eradicate malaria, but as long as his community and kinsmen live in abject poverty, ravaged by diseases, without him showing human kindness to help them, all his media hype of being a billionaire and philanthropist is nothing but a barrel full of lies. 

“No matter the quantity of land Ned acquires from his people all in a blind, greedy quest and the false claims of building a golf course and a sports university, as long as he continues to short-change and turn his back on people who do media jobs for him, his pretentious and selective philanthropy comes to nothing."

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