East -West Road: Court Throws Out RCC Objection To Property Owners’ Suit

The Federal High Court in Port Harcourt has struck out an objection raised by Reynolds Construction Company Limited, the contractor handling the reconstruction of the Eleme axis of the East – West road against a suit filed by property owners along the route to stop the demolition of their property.
The court on Friday had overruled the objection of RCC challenging the jurisdiction of the court to try the matter.
The property owners association had secured an injunction of the court in 2024 stopping RCC from demolishing their property located along the right of way of the project without paying compensation in line with prevailing market value of the properties.
RCC had been forced since then to carry on with the reconstruction work without demolishing the properties listed in the suit. But the property owners alleged that RCC was obstructing their properties, most of which are business premises.
The property owners said the valuation of their property was carried out many years ago during the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan with a pricing template when a bag of cement was N1,500. “The quotation done by RCC and valuation for affected properties was done, reflecting a bag of cement at the rate of N1,500. Regrettably, RCC wasn’t paid until 9 years later when a bag of cement was above N6,000,” Joseph Obele, the Chairman of the property owners association said.
“About 18 petroleum filling stations on the Eleme East-West Road approached the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt with prayers that the court should stop RCC from further demolishing their properties and adequate compensation reflecting market realities to be paid for their properties.
“The court in the year 2024 ordered RCC to suspend demolition of the listed properties before the court pending determination of the suit. Most worrisome is the fact that RCC kept obstructing and demolishing their properties even until last weekend,” he added.
In a related development, the Minister of Works, David Umahi, invited the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners of Nigeria (PETROAN) to a meeting in his office in Abuja after the body called for the cancellation of the East-West Road contract to RCC.
Dr. Obele, who was at the meeting, said a number of issues including the following were discussed: reevaluation of the contract, slow pace of work on the project, compensation for about 60 affected Retail Outlets, and out-of-court resolution of the suit by the retail outlet owners.
He said the minister acknowledged that RCC had failed two previous delivery timelines given by the President on the project.
A committee he said was constituted to recommend action on the project by February 2025.