Perhaps, the Monday, April 27 invasion of the Ukpabi Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State by suspected armed herdsmen would have been averted if security operatives in the state had properly beefed up security when they received a report on the imminent attack.
 There was an allegation that the community was successfully attacked because unscrupulous elements leaked intelligent information to the invaders. The attackers were said to have stormed the community from the surrounding bush, hacking their victims to death with daggers, knives, small axes and A-K 47 rifles. 


  Nimbo is made up of seven villages - Enugu Nimbo, Nimbo Ngwoko, Ugwuijoro, Ebor, Ekwuru, Umuome and Ugwuachara - all of them were attacked brutally.
  Right now, nobody, not even the security agencies or villagers can give the accurate figure of casualties. This is because more corpses are being recovered from the bush and some victims who were receiving treatment have died. For instance, Akogwu Utazi, a relative of Senator Chuka Utazi, representing Enugu North Senatorial Zone, was said to have died at the Bishop Shanahan Memorial Hospital, Nsukka on Wednesday. Also, it is not clear whether Mr.  Patrick Eze, a youth corps member and one of the three victims referred to the National Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu (NOHE) would survive.
 When Daily Trust on Sunday visited the hospital, it was learnt that Eze’s condition had worsened on Thursday. “We’re not sure he will last till tomorrow (Friday), and there’s no way we can allow you to enter there,” a nurse told our reporter at the NOHE.    
One of the indigenes of the community, Chioma Ajogwu, whose brother, Celestine, is one of the lucky surviving victims currently receiving treatment at the hospital, said: “For over a week and some days, we had police security. We also had all the youth in our community and its neighbourhood. Every day, they (security men) would keep guard in the community and its surroundings.
 “But immediately the security men left the community about 6am on Monday to prepare for another night, the invaders came. They came from the bush, dividing themselves into several groups,” she said.
  Celestine received life-threatening bullet and machete injuries on his neck, mouth, hands and back. Thinking that he had died, his attackers abandoned him.
 Root cause of the invasion, Daily Trust on Sunday was informed that the relationship between Ukpabi Nimbo and its herdsmen guests was severed in 2015, when the hosts demanded that the herdsmen must leave their land. They accused them of unleashing destruction on their farms as well as raping their women. Last year, a fight between the herdsmen and Nimbo people reportedly led to the loss of lives on both sides. At last, the herdsmen were said to have angrily left the community, but some of them stayed back inside the bush.  
 “When the herdsmen left, our people rejoiced, thinking that the matter was over. We did not know that few of the herdsmen were still in the bush. Later, they wrote a letter to our Igwe (traditional ruler), telling him that they would come back for war, whether he liked it or not. They did not state the actual date of the proposed war,” Ajogwu recalled. According to her, the herdsmen had vowed to avenge the death of their brothers during last year’s fracas.
 To prevent the imminent war, upon receiving the threat letter from the herdsmen, the traditional ruler of Nimbo, Igwe John Akor, reportedly held a meeting with the leadership of the herdsmen and some of their notable kinsmen. He wanted to find a means of averting the attack. The response he got from the leadership of the herdsmen and their kinsmen was that nothing could be done to prevent the attack, adding that they should prepare for war. He reportedly alerted the state and local governments.
Following the development, stakeholders from the local government met in Enugu to seek a lasting solution to the alleged attacks, kidnap and rape of women by the suspected herdsmen in communities within the council area.
 The chairman of the Transition Committee of Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area, Cornell Onwubuya, also alerted Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the commissioner of police, Enugu State command, Nwodibo Ekechukwu, of the herdsmen’s threat.
 Onwubuya said the local leaders of the Fulani community also confirmed that there were attempts to bring in mercenaries to invade some Uzo-Uwani communities. He recalled that some Fulani leaders in Enugu had complained that some of their people were killed within Nimbo and Abbi communities last year.
 During the meeting held in the Enugu Government House, the traditional leader of Fulani community in Enugu State, Alhaji Haldo Saidu Baso, said he had lived in Enugu State for over 33 years and would not be alive to witness the kind of crisis they were talking about. Baso assured that he would talk to his people not to take laws into their hands but to always report disturbing issues to traditional rulers of the communities.
 Daily Trust on Sunday was reliably informed by an indigene of the community that the invading attackers were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, bayonets, small axes and knives. They wore black cloths. They also tied black cloths on their foreheads.
 A villager and one of the victims of the attack, Kingsley Ezugwu, who is also a former councillor for Nimbo Ward 2, spoke in his hospital bed at Nsukka, saying: “I was coming out from the house when I heard the community bell ring. I went with a friend to know what the bell was about, only to see about 40 Fulani herdsmen, armed with sophisticated guns and machetes. They pursued us, killed my friend and shot at me several times but missed. They later caught me and used machetes on me until I fainted.” He said they abandoned him, thinking that he was dead. Ezugwu said he managed to crawl out of the spot until another villager took him to the hospital.
 Our correspondent learnt that a team of security agents, made up of the army, police and the Nigeria Security Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), has been deployed to the troubled area, which was deserted following the invasion.
 Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who visited the area on Tuesday, not only wept openly, he also asked the people to remain calm. He declared two days of fasting and prayer for God’s intervention in the matter, and donated N5million to the community as a palliative measure.
 Ugwuanyi also told the people that when he got a security report on Sunday concerning the imminent attack on the community, he immediately summoned an emergency meeting of the State Security Council. He said the council met on Sunday night till the early hours of Monday, shortly before the herdsmen struck. He regretted that the sad incident eventually occurred despite all the assurances by security operatives.
 The Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, who visited the community on Wednesday, April 26, vowed that the police would fish out the perpetrators of the attack and prosecute them accordingly. He ordered the arrest of one Corporal Chukwu, attached to Adani Police Division over an alleged collaboration with the attackers during the invasion.
Many stakeholders of the community and others believe that the unfortunate attack would have been nipped in the bud if security was properly beefed up by those concerned. 

Read more at http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/feature/enugu-killings-how-we-came-under-attack--villagers/144790.html#8DmPexjeiyjq4b4d.99

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