A retired police sergeant, Fidelis Ogili, has sent a save our soul letter to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), over his four units of two-bedroom bungalows demolished in the former Federal Low Cost Housing Estate located at Edem-Ani, Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, and reallocated to a developer.

Ogili, in the letter dated September 15, 2020, said he spent all his life savings to procure the houses, having served his fatherland meritoriously for 16 years and 11 months, adding that the Minister of Works and Housing sold them to a developer without consulting him and the developer demolished the buildings.

According to the retired police officer, the estate was abandoned and vandalised for years until “between 2010 and 2016, the Federal Government under the Public-Private Partnership initiative of the Ministry of Works and Housing handed over parts of the Federal Low Cost Housing Estate built during former President Shehu Shagari’s day at Edem-Ani for redevelopment.”

Ogili lamented that he was surprised that his own allocation as well as those of others in the estate was given to developers, who demolished the property and were preparing to build another estate.

He noted that the Federal Controller of Works in Enugu, in a letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Works and Housing, Abuja, suggested that “alternative houses and plots be given to me  after assessing the level of my distress and as I speak, nothing has been done despite my several trips to Abuja with my meagre pension.”

Ogili threatened to embark on a one-man demonstration if nothing was done urgently to compensate him with new houses, plots of land or money.

He wrote, “Mr President, I am appealing to you to do something so that I’ll be compensated for losing my life savings after many years of meritorious service to my fatherland. Let them give me other housing units or pay me financial compensation.

“If nothing is done urgently and quickly too, I’ll be forced to embark on demonstration or do something I might live to regret.”