🗣️ Gist💔 Relationship Wahala
My Uncle Sold the Land My Father Was Buried On. I Found Out at Christmas.
Q
Quick Mamba from Osogbo
about 1 month ago
I was 31, working in Lagos, and I had not been home to Enugu in two years. This was December 2021. My father died in 2016, and before he died he showed me the documents for the plot at Ugwuaji. He said, Nnam, this land is for you and your sister. Keep the papers safe. I kept them in a folder in my flat. I never thought anybody could touch that land. Christmas that year, I drove down with my wife and our daughter. We reached the compound and I saw a fence. New gate. Somebody was building. My mother was inside the house, quiet. She had been quiet for months on the phone and I thought it was just her age. It was my father's younger brother. Uncle Chinedu. He had forged a signature on a power of attorney, used his position in the family meeting, and sold that plot to a businessman from Onitsha. My mother knew. She had been crying about it since August. I did not shout. I sat down on the veranda and I asked her one question. Why did you not tell me. She said, what will you do. You are in Lagos. He is here. That sentence stayed with me. He is here. We went to court in 2022. It took two years. We won, but the money the businessman paid was gone. Uncle Chinedu had built a house in Abakpa with it. He is still my uncle. We still greet at funerals. What I learned is this. Land in Igboland does not belong to the dead. It belongs to whoever is standing on it when you are not looking. If your father leaves you papers, come home. Do not wait for Christmas.
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