Dauda Tombo Bangura in court today
Honourable Dauda Tombo Bangura (photo), one time leadership aspirant of the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) and currently Fundraising Ambassador of the ruling All People’s Congress (APC), will stand face to face today in a magistrate court with popular land dealer, Alfred A.S. Chambers, on two count charges bordering on the ownership of a piece of land situated at Marjay Town in the Goderich general area.
The charges are malicious damage to property contrary to Section 51 of the Malicious Damage Act of 1861 and trespass contrary to Section `15(1((a) of the Public Order Act of 1965, were brought against Hon. Dauda Tombo Bangura and 16 others by Mr. Alfred Chambers, who claims to be the owner of the land in dispute.
The said land has been the subject of controversy between the two men for a while, although the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Country Planning had long laid the matter to rest.
In a report issued on 8th February 2011 by the ministry following an investigation into the matter, signed and counter signed by Mr. Bob M. Koker as Government Surveyor and Dr. William L. Farmer as Director of Surveys and Lands respectively, Hon. Dauda Tombo Bangura also known as DTB, was declared as the legal owner of the land, thereby deflating Mr. Chambers’ ownership claim.
Despite the report by the ministry, efforts by DTB to exercise due right over the land and develop it have been held at bay by Mr. Chambers, who on Friday 29th April 2011 stormed the site alongside ten armed Operational Support Division (OSD) personnel of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP).
The police offices without undertaking any independent investigations, vandalized the structures erected on the land by DTB, mercilessly beating and dragging the care takers to the Central Police Station, where the Local Unit Commander Bakarr Koroma, dismissed the matter on grounds that the ministry of lands has already settled the issue of ownership over the land. The police officers who were involved in what later turned out to be an unauthorized raid, are reported to have been dashed the sum of Le 250,000 (Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Leones) by Mr. Chambers.
The court hearing today will be the very beginning of the final end of the matter.
By Theophilus S. Gbenda
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