Alleged N16bn land scam: Victims seek Gov. Wike intervention

Nworgu

Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt

A Pastor (name withheld)  and three others who signed bail bonds and provided sureties for an alleged fraudulent real estate developer, Kelly Nworgu, who were detained by the Police after suspect jumped bail have been set free three weeks after.

They were set free after the re-arrest of the popular estate developer,  Nworgu, AKA De-villa. who jumped bail three weeks ago.

The Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Nnamdi Omoni, told our correspondent that  Nworgu, submitted himself to the Police a few days ago after much pressure from the police and his victims who had embarked on combing of the nooks and crannies of the streets of Rivers State to search for him.

He added that Nworgu is now in detention while his Pastor and three others who stood as sureties for his bail have been released.

Nworgu was arrested following complaints from many residents of Rivers that he defrauded them of billions of naira in fraudulent land deals.

The Chairman and Spokesman of the victims of ‘De-villa land scam,’ Chief Michael Ezedike,  while commending the police over the re-arrest Nworgu, said the suspect had allegedly confessed to defrauding his victims over N16 billion in fake land deals.

’He said, “I want the Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike to help us to prosecute this matter to a logical conclusion to ensure that justice is served for this man to pay us all the monies he collected from us.

“He confessed to us before the Commissioner of Police that the land he sold to us belongs to the Rivers State Government, himself in connivance with his wife and the community Chiefs knew quite well that the land is not theirs and they agreed to collect money from us as goat money and permits without any allocation after all the paper work had been completed’’.

He noted that Kelly Nworgu and his wife worked together on the fraudulent deals as the banking statements obtained by the Police shows that she made all the withdrawals from the account into an unknown place.

“Each time any client pays, she withdraws the money immediately in cash and also, those Chiefs who paraded themselves as landlords and owners of the land using community boys to chase us away each time we come to possess the so called land allocated to us, please the governor should help us, some of us invested with our last penny just to secure a land to build our dream homes”.