Delta Technicians, Onitsha Businessman battle over mechanic village.

Barely two weeks after the Delta state government embarked on the construction of a mechanic village in Asaba, the state capital, crisis has erupted over sales of forms to highest bidders. 

         Association of the Auto-Mobile Technicians, Delta state chapter, has raised the alarm that business moguls from neighbouring Onitsha market in Anambra state had hijacked the whole thing. But the special executive Assistant to the Governor on investment, Mr. Paul Nmah said it was the figment of imagination of the Association.

While the association decried a move by the state government to sell the mechanic village, under contraction without following the terms of agreement with the association. Nmah said the place was been built for artisans who would do genuine business. The association's chairman, Mr. Ifeanyi Abanum, who lamented that the pact the association had with the governor of the state, Ifeanyi Okowa, had been inexplicably jettisoned, wondering why the occupancy had been politicized. He said: "We have heard that forms are already on sale, and that was not our agreement with the governor prior to the take off of the construction of the mechanic village." We agreed that the machanic village would be built and allocated to the mambers of the association on a subsidized price, but now they have started selling the form for the market to other people who were not part of the initial negotiation. We own the land. It was donated by the community to the auto-mobile technicians to be used as mechanic village in 1982. So, it is not government land.

The state government entered into partnership with a private firm to build the mechanic village and transfer to government that will in turn deal with us. That was the agreement we had and not the madness going on now."