Today’s Umuorii Rainbow Estate site used to be the Owerri Local Headquarters Permanent Site which the Imo State Government had acquired from the original landowners of Umuorii Uratta for that purpose vide Imo State Legal Notice No. 48 of 1990. Compensation was duly paid to the original landowners as required by the Land Use Act.
Following the splitting of Owerri Local Government into three baby local government councils in 1997, and the devolution of the land to Owerri North Local Government, the Governor considered and approved a proposal brought forward by an investment company i.e. Antioch American Investment Company Limited for change of the Purpose Clause of the land in 2004 from from Public Building to Residential and Commercial Housing Estate Development.
The Change of Purpose Clause for the land was finally effected in 2005, but attempts subsequently made by interested council officials to hijack the project from Antioch American Investment Company Limited to which the initial approval was given by the Governor drew the attention of the original landowners and ultimately led to SUIT NO. HOW/320/2006:SIMEON ENWERE & ORS (FOR THEMSELVES AND OTHER ORIGINAL LANDOWNERS OF PLOT P.10 EGBU/URATTA LAYOUT OWERRI t P.10 Egbu/Uratta Layout Owerri) V. OWERRI NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCIL & ORS. The dispute was, however, settled by a consent judgment in which the court gave the project its name of Umuorii Rainbow Estate and approved the establishment of Owerri North Housing Estates Limited (now called Umuorii Rainbow Estates Limited) for the purpose of executing the project. The court also vested the rights of occupancy of the land on the company, thereby making the company the only source of genuine plot titles.
Project execution was flagged off at the site in March 2007, but it soon became the subject matter of several court litigations orchestrated by the original landowners led by one Chief Amobi Uwaleke. The matters were heard by different High Courts, but at the end the original landowners lost all their litigation to the project company. The original landowners went up to the Court of Appeal and also lost to the project company.
The project is now back on tract and even those who entered the land unlawfully are being offered opportunity to regularize and obtain perfect title.
