By Olayinka Owolabi
A human rights group, the Liberty Access and Peace Defender’s Foundation (HURDE), have called on Governor Chukwuma Soludo to as a matter urgent importance recover all public cemeteries taken over by individuals land grabbers and organisations in Onitsha and environs.
In a press statement issued in Awka, Anambra State, the chairman of CD in South East and Executive Director, HURIDE, Comrade Uzor A Uzor, said the only cemetery currently existing in Onitsha is the one owned by the Moslem community in the commercial city along Modebe Avenue.
“There is no place to bury the dead Onitsha now. The ones in Oraifite Street,Awada Obosi in Idemili North Local Government Area and New Cemetery Road in Odoakpu, Onitsha have been sold out to different organisations including churches” he said.
He therefore called on the Anambra State Governor to as a matter of urgency activate all the instruments in her disposal with the Local Governments to move into action immediately.
High Chief Uzor said: “It is very disheartening that parts of the cemeteries have been taken over by churches.Those cemeteries should be recovered with immediate effect”.
“There should be a place for people to bury their dead in Onitsha and environs.”
All those cemeteries taken over and converted to individual use like the one in Oraifite Street Awada, Obosi and New Cemetery Road, where private buildings, Churches and residential houses are springing up should be recovered with immediate effect by the Anambra State Government,” comrade Uzor said.
