Beneficiaries of the Cross River State Government, CRSG, allotted 1,415 hectares of cocoa farms by the immediate past administration of Ben Ayade’s, will heave a huge sigh of relief after a CRS High Court sitting in Effraya, Etung LGA, granted an order of interim injunction restraining the CRSG from evicting the allottees from the cocoa farms.
The court, presided over by Justice Amajama Eneji, in suit NO HE/16/2024, between Charles Mgbe, allottees of the said 1,415 hectares of cocoa plots, and the Cross River State Government, ordered that the allottees be allowed in their cocoa plots. The court restrained the CRSG, her agents or cohorts, from intimidating beneficiaries of the cocoa plots from the estate.
Mgbe and co, through their counsel Mba Ukweni, SAN, approached the court, after Bassey Edet Otu, governor of CRS, constituted a Cocoa Allocation Committee led by Ebori Nku. Nku’s committee had declared the occupancy of the farms by the allottees as illegal.
After arguments were presented by the legal teams, the judge maintained that, “…after careful perusal of the motion paper, exhibits and written address, it is hereby ordered that the motion be granted as prayed.”
“Accordingly an order of interim injunction is hereby granted restraining defendants/respondents, their agents, servants, cohort assigns, and collaborators and their privies in whatever guise from harassing and threatening, intimidating, evicting or attempting to evict,” the order read.
Ukweni, SAN, who later spoke outside the court, stressed that “Those cocoa farms were duly allocated to them, paid for and government has made use of the money. Government have not refunded their money or relocated them to another place, and they said because it is a new government. There is no such thing known to our law or government policies.
“Government is a continuum. You cannot collect money from people, and you enter into a contract with them and you say because a new government has come, the contract is invalidated.”
“It’s not done that way. So, the order granted by the court restraints the government from evicting them from the estate, pending when they will come and make their own representation.”
The court however adjourned to April 29, 2024 for the hearing of the motion on notice.
