Court restrains Cross River Govt from evicting allottees of cocoa estate

A High Courtsitting in Effraya, Etung local government area, has stopped the Cross River Government from evicting beneficiaries of 1,415 hectares of cocoa farms allottedby the immediate past administration of the state.

In a ruling on Thursday, Justice Amajama Eneji ordered the state government not to intimidate beneficiaries of the cocoa plots in the estate.

The suit was filed by Mr. Charles Mgbe on behalf of other allottees.

The beneficiaries’ counsel,Mba Ukweni, SAN, approached the court seeking redress after a new cocoa allocation committee appointed by Gov. Bassey Otu and led by Mr. Ebori Nku declared their occupancy illegal.

The judge ruled that the order was given after careful perusal of the motion paper, exhibits, and written address.

"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, threatening, intimidating, evicting, orattempting to evict,” he said.

He adjourned the matter until April 29 for the hearing of the motion on notice.

Speaking to newsmen after the ruling, Ukweni insisted that justice must prevail, stressing that the government would be served a notice to appear in court.

“Those cocoa farms were duly allocated to them, and they have paid.

”The government wants to evict them.

Government is a continuum; you cannot collect money from people; you enter into a contract with them, and you say that because a new government has come, the contract is invalidated.

“Its not done that way. So the order granted by the court restrains the government from evicting the beneficiaries from the estate, pending when they will come and make their own representation,” he said.

He added that if the state fails to appear before the court, his clients would have their claims.

The court, he said, does not wait for anyone.