■Villagers desert homes in fear for their lives
■Monarch accused of desperate attempt to take their land
■They are the ones after my life but they won’t succeed –Monarch

FROM ALOYSIUS ATTAH, ONITSHA

Peace has literarily taken flight in Umun­ya community, Oyi Local Government Area, Anambra State. Unless Governor Willie Obiano, takes immediate executive steps, the loss of lives is imminent as blood has already been flowing in the area going by the number of people already injured.

The cause of the crisis is the power tussle over land between the traditional ruler of the com­munity, Igwe Kris Onyekwuluje and the executive members of Odumodu Ebonabo led by their Chairman, Mr. Ekene Okonkwo Ejeh. Another village quarter, Umu-Ebo is also up in arms with the traditional ruler over land matters with accusations and counter-accusations flying every­where, like a rain of bullets.

Umunya shares a common boundary with Awkuzu and Nteje as one heads towards Awka, the Anambra State capital. It is made up of 10 villages namely, Okpu, Isioye, Ezi-Umunya, Ojobi , Ajakpani, Umu-Ebo, Amaezike, Odumodu-Enu, Odumodu-Ana and Ukunu.

For administrative convenience and to make it easy to administer their natural endowments, mainly land, the people of Odumodu-Enu and Odumodu-Ana came together and formed Odumodu Ebonabo Improvement Union registered with the Corporate Affairs Com­mission.

The traditional ruler of the community, Igwe Onyekwulu­je hails from Ajakpani village while Ekene Ejeh the Chairman of Odumodu Ebonabo is from Odumodu-Enu.

There have been tension and apprehension in the community over sale of lands and the pro­ceeds for some time, but things took a dangerous dimension in the last two months leading to arson, mayhem, brutality and unrest.

The traditional ruler, Igwe Onyekwuluje recently raised the alarm over an assassination attempt on his life, stating that he had evidence that Ekene Okonk­wo Ejeh and his group planned to eliminate him. In fact, the traditional ruler has a recorded

video where the plan on how to eliminate him was hatched and he carries the video in his laptop anywhere he goes and would not hesitate to play it for any doubtvideo where the plan on how to ing Thomas to watch and draw his own conclusion. ­

Alarmed by the discovery, the Igwe wrote a petition to the police alleging threat to his life, which led to the arrest of Ekene and his group, who were clamped into detention at the dreaded Awkuzu Special Anti Robbery Squad until a court granted them bail.

But Ekene reacting to the mon­arch’s allegations, has debunked the tale that he planned to assassi­nate the traditional ruler as a car­erfully constructed hoax intended to hoodwink people, stating that the Igwe concocted it in order to silence their group so that he, the monarch, could continue in what he described as “wicked and self­ish plot to emasculate everybody in the community while selling their lands and feeding fat on the proceeds.”

The executive members of Odumodu Ebonabo are also crying foul that instead of the government and other stakehold­ers to give them succour from the weight of oppression they have been suffering in the hands of the traditional ruler and his agents, they are being accused of trying to kill the traditional ruler when there was no such intent on their part.

The people who are presently on self-imposed exile from their community owing to the massive brutality meted out to them allegedly by the parallel youth organization said to have been formed by the traditional ruler using one Okwudili Nwankwo alias Oforkansi regaled Sunday Sun reporter with tales of their predicament. Coincidentally, when the reporter met with the youth body who were accused of the brutality, they denied all the allegations.

With various degrees of injuries on their body, the victims shared their ugly stories in a hideout somewhere in Awka and lamented that they have been made refugees in their own land.

Some other victims including octogenarians who spoke with the reporter from their hideout outside the state cried out to Gov­ernor Willie Obiano to save them from their daily nightmare.

Origin of the crisis

Going down memory lane, the Secretary of Odumodu Ebonabo Improvement Union, Comrade Sunday Esedo, gave Sunday Sun an insight into how the dis­agreement with their traditional ruler snowballed into the present crisis that has torn the community apart. He gave three instances that were also corroborated by the Chairman, Ekene Okonkwo-Ejeh in a separate interview.

As he told the story, the Federal government acquired about 210.8 hectares of land from Odumodu (200 hectares in 1984 and 10.8 in 1997) for its proposed housing estate under the site-and-services scheme, but failed to put it to use till date.

“Ironically, we discovered that the land is now being fraudulently sold off in bits by officials of the Federal Ministry of Lands, con­trary to the terms of agreement of the acquisition. We wrote to the FML invoking a clause in the agreement which provided that 20 per cent of the acquired land be returned to us as the need arises – citing precedence and such exam­ples in other parts of the country including that of Ugwuaji in Enu­gu State. The ministry officials consequently visited and during their courtesy call on the Igwe told him their mission in Umun­ya. The traditional ruler allegedly told them that he is the Chief Security Officer and custodian of all lands in the community and that he would reach out to us, the Odumodu people to hand over all the allocation papers. That he would ensure a proper, peaceful and equitable distribution. The visitors then handed him all the papers. Incidentally, instead of doing just that, he was later found to have allegedly handed the allocation papers to his family members and cronies.

“Whereas the traditional ruler hails from Ajakpani, no person from Odumodu, the actual own­ers of the land, got any. We didn’t even know or hear anything about it until the restiveness of our people took us back to the FML officials who then narrated what transpired between them and the monarch. When we got back to the Igwe, he told us that we should have patience that he has not tidied things up with the FML officials and that he would let us know as soon as he was through.

“But because of doubts we already had, because of the Igwe’s body language, we quickly went back to FML to hint them on our discussion with the Igwe. It was at this point that the officials brought out the file on Odumodu-Umunya and showed our delegation the long list of beneficiaries that Igwe Onye­kwuluje had submitted since. We nearly fainted because not even a single name from our village was submitted by Igwe. Consequently we went to court, insisting that any land acquired for overriding public interest shall never be sold out instead it should have been used to build public facilities. After this our action, Igwe On­yekwuluje met with Ekene and was very angry that we went to court because he knew that by our action, he would eventually lose the 100 plots he acquired through crooked means.

“The second issue we have with Igwe was that sometime last year, we got reliable information that the traditional ruler led a pri­vate company and their team in­cluding some foreigners to Gov­ernor Obiano. They presented a well rehearsed story and ‘sports academy’ gimmick to Gover­nor Obiano, stating that they proposed to build 30,000 housing units, 8 sports stadia, shopping malls, schools, hospitals, parking lots, etc. So when the governor demanded to know how they in­tended to finance the whole multi-pronged project, which he saw as very ambitious, noting that even a state government cannot mobilize enough funds to undertake such a programme, they couldn’t give a satisfactory answer.

“The governor was so dis­mayed that he allegedly stood up and told the Igwe to his face that he was very disappointed that he could bring such bogus proposal to him with the intent for him to sign the Certificate of Occupancy of the land belonging to Igwe’s subjects to them. Thereafter he walked out on them. The group, dejected and thoroughly embar­rassed left in shame. Because his intention to corner large parcel of Odumodu land with this outland­ish project failed, Igwe was angry again and told our chairman, Ekene to his face that he would deal with him.

“The third issue that finally led to our present fate, where we are now refugees as we are talking to you, has to do with our deal with the Anglican Church. We gave the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion land on lease in 1960s, where they built Umunya Girls Secondary School. The school premises incidentally accommodated the NYSC for Anambra State Corps members Orientation Camp. After using it for so long, the Church now wanted to convert it to a free­hold property for them to build what they call Camp of Faith, a multipurpose centre. So they approached our leadership for renegotiation and after series of meetings, we agreed on N50mil­lion-to be paid in installments, for guided mass-oriented develop­mental projects in the community.

“When Igwe got wind of this development again, he called our chairman and told him point blank that if we fail to give him 10 per cent of the sum, he would spoil the business for us. When our chairman threw the matter open to us during our meeting, we rejected Igwe’s proposal abso­lutely and made it clear that he is not from Odumodu and therefore could not partake in what does not belong to him.

“Igwe then swore to teach us a lesson and quickly went to the Bishop, Owen Nwokolo, along­side one Ben Erikefe from Amak­pu Nteje, who he presented as representative of Nteje commu­nity. He told the Bishop that we had lost ownership rights of the land in the court to Nteje and that the church should actually pay the N50m to Erikefe, not to Ejeh or anyone else from Umunya. But the Bishop after consultation with Barrister Ibegbu, who is in charge of legal matters for the church told Igwe that the 1960 docu­ments and agreement was signed by the six (6) kindreds of Odumo­du. That it was therefore bizarre how Nteje came in now, more so, it was the same Erikefe that the Igwe took to the Bishop, was the person who said under cross-ex­amination that Nteje people were not disputing that portion of land with our village.

“Feeling disappointed, the traditional ruler at this point now summoned some boys from our village, one Okwudili Nwankwo and told him to go with some oth­ers and prepare a petition against Ekene. Because these boys were not educated, Igwe was the one who prepared the petition against our chairman through his palace secretary, Ernest Nwoye alleg­ing all sorts of things against us. They drafted the petition and those boys now appended their signature.

“Unrelenting and based on the petition he instigated, Igwe then visited Odumodu on June 16, 2015 and inaugurated a parallel youth association to upstage our own. He was said to have told the youths that he would give them the balance of funds from the church so that Ekene will not disappear with it. The poor fel­lows fell for it and he gave them the mandate to fortify their group with some runaway suspected criminals.

“The traditional ruler gave them the mandate to be unleash­ing mayhem in the community because he assured them that he is connected in high places including the Inspector General of Police, the State Police Com­missioner, while assuring them that he would get them released anytime they ran into problem with the police. The mandate given to them is the result of all the mayhem unleashed on our community.

Monarch denies alle­gations

After several failed efforts to meet with the traditional ruler of Umunya, Igwe Kris Onyekwu­luje and give him opportunity to respond to all the lingering issues, the reporter finally succeeded. During the interaction with the reporter, Igwe Onyekwuluje not only denied all the allegations raised by the Odumodu Ebonabo people but presented documen­tary evidence and video where Ekene and his group purportedly planned to kill him. He also gave out the phone number of the youth leader, Okwudili Nwank­wo who the Ekene Ejeh group alleged is the squad leader behind those attacking them and urged the reporter to make out time to see him for verification.

“The document I have speaks for itself. Ekene Okonkwo Ejeh and co are the people who know how to deal with native doctors. Mine is to ask, what is the job of Ekene Okonkwo Ejeh that he owns up to 6 or 7 SUVs? What is his source of livelihood that he bought properties in Abuja and so on? It was his people in Odumodu that came to complain to me and I only told them to put it in writing and they had to raise a petition against him and Odumodu Ebonabo. Based on the petitions raised by his people against him, I called him, Obed Nweke, Chukwudozie Udemeand co are the people who know zue, and others, but Ekene didn’t come. The others came and I gave them the minutes of the meeting. They call themselves youths but among them are some grandpar­ents. It was a case of the same people raising objection that few people had been embezzling their money,” the monarch said. ­

They are running for their sins –Parallel Odumodu Youths

Armed with the phone number of the parallel youth organization of Odumodu village, the report­er called their leader, Okwudili Nwankwo, aka, Oforkansi, to get his own side of the story on whether he and his group actu­ally committed all the atrocities alleged by the fleeing Ekene Ejeh and group.

Oforkansi on ascertaining the identity of the reporter said that he couldn’t talk alone on the phone and asked the reporter to come down to the village and see the youths for a proper briefing.

On the agreed date, Oforkansi mobilized the town crier who went round to summon the youths who converged on Amaugo square, Odumodu. With some clutching cigarettes and bottles of beer they regaled the reporter with tales of their predicament in the hands of the Odumodu Ebonabo group led by Ekene Ejeh. The youths owned up that many of them are unemployed with majority ekeing out a living by doing menial jobs like digging foundations for builders. They blamed their predicament on the mismanagement of their com­mon heritage (land proceeds) by Ekene Ejeh and co. Some of the youths who spoke to the reporter like Maduka Nwoye, Chidiebere Okwuonu, Okechukwu Asionye. Chukwunonso Obita alias Mazi Egwu, Ifeanyichukwu Peter and Fidelis Obinze, a physical­ly challenged civil servant, all acknowledged that the cause of quarrel was a case of few people benefitinmg from the collective patrimony of the entire commu­nity. Their position was corrobo­rated by two elders in their midst, Emmanuel Nweke and Emman­uel Ozue.

But when contacted to react to the allegation of the youth leader, Ekene Ejeh said it was the same youths, who refused to allow him step down as Chairman all the years pending when they will win all their cases with some commu­nities trespassing on their land. He said proceeds from the few plots of land he sold were used in funding the cost of litigations for their case with land speculators.

Peace on the hori­zon?

When the reporter also met the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Hosea Karma, he said any aggrieved party in the Umunya crisis should come and see him in the office for complaints apart from writing petitions. He main­tained that he operates an open door policy and often interviews both parties to a dispute before referring the case to the appro­priate desk to ensure that justice prevailed.

The President General, Umunya Improvement Union, a clergyman, Ven. Emma Odunze when contacted said that a peace committee has been set up with the mandate of talking to all par­ties in the dispute. He expressed confidence that when the com­mittee completes its assignment, peace would eventually return to the troubled community.