Tempers at the weekend rose to boiling points among the three clans in Aguleri-Otu, Anambra East Council Area of Anambra State following the invasion of their homeland by renegades who reportedly came from communities in Ibaji Council Area of Kogi State penultimate week.

Communities in Ibaji area of Kogi State and the oil producing Aguleri –otu clan in Anambra State which is home to the state-owned Orient Petroleum Refinery share common borders.

About a week ago, some armed people reportedly from communities in Ibaji invaded Aguleri-otu at night and allegedly killed seven people, burnt and destroyed their houses and farms while three people who were abducted during the raid are still missing.
But at the weekend during the Ofala festival and 10-year anniversary on the throne of the traditional ruler of Mkpunando, one of the three clans of Aguleri-otu, which had to be relocated to Aguleri-uno in the upland for fear of attack by hostile Ibaji neighbours, the traditional ruler of Mkpunando, Igwe Alex Edozieuno, warned that the unprovoked attack on the communities of Aguleri-otu by the Ibaji people of Kogi State was like tickling the tail of a lion which should not have been, whether it is dead or alive because the consequences could be unimaginable.

According to him, the people of Aguleri-otu clan had peacefully lived in the area they now inhabit since 7AD with their Ibaji neighbours, fishing and farming together until oil was discovered there on their soil.

He said it was not until Orient Petroleum sited a refinery there a few weeks to its commissioning August 30 last year by President Goodluck Jonathan, that the Ibaji People started laying claims to the area.

The Federal Government, he said, intervened through the National Boundary Commission (NBC) and nerves calmed only for the same Ibaji people of Kogi State to launch an attack against them last week, killing seven of their kinsmen, destroying houses and abducting three persons.

Expressing regrets that the invasion took the Aguleri-otu people unawares, Igwe Edozieuno, who said that emissaries had been sent to both the Federal Government and Anambra State Government on the issue, warned that if the Ibaji people continued to invade them, they shall be left without no alternative than to go to war.

This, he explained, is because they shall not allow them to annex their ancestral home land even if it means one man standing.

“If they continued to invade us, we shall go to war because we shall not allow them to take our ancestral home from us even if it is one man standing.”
“The land is ours and our fore-fathers had lived here since 7AD. What they are doing is wishful thinking.

“The area where the oil is found and is been produced presently is our own land well demarcated by the colonial government in 1932 long before independence,” he said.

He described the Ibaji communities in kogi state as very hostile neighbours who of late had been giving his people terrible problems, adding that in as much as they preferred peace to war, they would not fold their hands and watch their people massacred and properties worth millions of naira destroyed by these renegades since we are not weaklings.
“They are pushing us to the wall,” he said.

He urged the Federal government to urgently do something by demarcating the boundary between the two communities based on existing map before the situation escalates to Igbo and Igala war because now, he said the communities in Ibaji council area of Kogi state may think that they are fighting the Aguleri-otu clan in Anambra East council area, but it may soon turn out to be a war between the Igala against the Igbo people if care is not taken.
Also speaking, the Traditional Ruler of Enugu-otu, one of the communities that make up Aguleri-otu clan, His Royal Majesty, Paul Mbonu Igweze said information from their findings since the last invasion by the Ibaji-Igala people is that they are spoiling for full scale war and currently amassing weapons of destruction.

Even as he said that the Aguleri-otu people are not cowards, he traced the current face-off to a period before the commissioning of Orient Petroleum when some armed people from Kogi attacked them.

“Since then, they have been spoiling for war. They are laying claims to the oil wells in our soil. But the funny thing is that the location of our land is many kilometers away from theirs and the Omambala (Anambra River) demarcates the states.

“They attacked us unprepared and took us by surprise. We have never retaliated that invasion and we have been maintaining the peace because the federal government through the military has asked us to calm down. But each time we adhere to that instruction, this people will continue to attack us.

“We are not weak. But I want to say that they have pushed us to the wall and naturally when that is done and you have no place to run to, the next thing will be to respond.

“We want the federal government to know that its seeming complacency on this matter is an ill wind which will blow nobody any good because we shall never run away from our homeland which we inherited from our fore-fathers and which their fore-fathers could not annex from our fore-bears”, he said and enjoined Ibaji people to ask the Kogi state government to develop the oil well they learnt was discovered on their own side of the state.

But Igwe Edozieuno of Mkpunando in spite of having to relocate his Ofala festival and celebration of his 10 years on the throne to the upland because of fear expressed by his guests described it as very successful though low keyed.


http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/kogi-anambra-border-anxiety-in-aguleri-over-invasion/144242/

We should pls give peace a chance.