Traditional ruler of Ndi Uduma Awoke in Ohafia Local Government of Abia State, His Royal Highness Ezeogo Uduma Nchonwa, has petitioned the Inspector General of Police over an alleged plan by Fulani herdsmen to attack the community.
Nchonwa spoke against the backdrop of a purported planned reprisal on the community by the herdsmen for alleged killing of one of them, two cows, and burning of two motorcycles belonging to their kinsmen by unknown people.
The monarch denied that the incident occurred in the community and added that since the report of the planned attack filtered into the community, the people had been leaving the area in their large numbers out of fear of being killed by the herdsmen.
He said, “The truth of the matter is that we don’t know the perpetrators of the incident. It neither occurred in our community nor farmland. All efforts to explain this to the authorities have fallen on deaf ears.
“We have also not been going to our farms. And this is very dangerous to an agrarian community like ours. What this means is that if the situation remained unchecked, our crops will all rot away.”
He called on both the state government and security agencies to take urgent steps now to avert any danger in the community or its environs “in view of what has been happening between herdsmen and farmers across the country.”
The monarch of the community, which is about four kilometres from the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Barracks, said since the June 8, 2017 incident, his subjects had noticed strange persons and movements around the community.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr. Adeleye Oyebade, has issued a statement signed by the Police Public Relations, Mr. Geoffrey Ogbonna, saying combined efforts of the police and the military doused the tension in the community.
Oyebade said the police had commenced covert operations and added that extensive patrol had been deployed to ensure no further breach of peace in the community and its environs.
He said the state Farmers/Herdsmen Conflicts Resolution Committee had passed recommendations to the government on how to resolve such issues.
source:punch
