Outcry As Landlord Evicts Nursing Mother, Others From His House Despite Owning No Rent

One Mrs Ifeyinwa Egwu of Samino Lane, Oduke Layout, Obosi, in the Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State has cried out over illegal eviction from her apartment.

Naija News reports that the nursing mother alleged her landlord ordered some hefty men to badge into their apartment and forcefully throw them out.

Mrs Egwu who lamented the situation saying the eviction was illegal as it was done without prior notification.

Standing and breastfeeding her three months old child by her property as seen in a clip on the internet, Mrs Egwu who narrated her ordeals said the men on Monday stormed the four-storey building where she lived and ejected her and four other tenants.

She said: “They said they were acting on the order of an Ogidi Magistrate’s Court, but they did not show us the order. They rather showed us a suit filed against us by our landlord, Mr Peter Ohaejesi, through his counsel, Mr Uche Abanuno.

“What is surprising is that we do not owe the landlord any rent. We are yearly tenants and the rent we paid this year in January will expire in December 2021.

“The bone of contention is the tenancy agreement, which his new lawyer is demanding. Right now, my husband travelled and before then, he paid the tenancy agreement, including other payments. We were not supposed to be ejected because of the tenancy agreement payment to a lawyer.

“Mr Uche Abanuno is the new lawyer who took over from the former one and this problem started when he insisted that whatever agreement we had with the former lawyer was over and that we had to pay him a tenancy agreement levy of N20,000 each and some peacefully paid. But the funny thing is that both those who paid and those who did not pay were ejected.

“We were not for one day summoned to court or told to appear in court over this issue until those hefty men who said they were from the Ogidi court came and presented this suit without a court order or judgement and started throwing away our property from the building, damaging our belongings in the process.”

She explained further that the men sent by the landlord also collected money from them after ejecting them from the building.

Mrs Egwu added: “I gave them N20,000, others gave N30,000, and N40,000, with the hope that we would be asked to return to our flats, but rather, they locked the flats and left.”

Lamenting the development another tenant, Mr Osita Ginikanwa, described the eviction as illegal and barbaric.

Ginikanwa said, “We were not summoned to any court. Two weeks ago, the lawyer came with the issue of the tenancy agreement and while we were still dragging the matter, he brought a suit against us and at the same time ejection without a court order.

“We were even 10 that were to be ejected, but they ejected five the first day and when they came for the second eviction, the tenants were ready to fight them and they ran away.

“We call on the judiciary to investigate the lawyer who came with the suit number, MID/396/2021 to intimidate us over non-payment of a tenancy agreement levy.”

The Punch reports that the Landlord when contacted on the phone, directed their correspondent to meet his counsel, Abanuno.

He, however, promised to look into the matter.

Abanuno, on his part, said, “I cannot talk to you on the phone; you have to officially write me with your company’s letterhead, then I will know when it will be convenient to invite you for talks.

“You cannot just call me on phone and expect me to respond to your questions; there is a procedure and that is what I have told you.”