14 Suspected Warlords Arrested Over Deity Tussle In Ebonyi
Security operatives have arrested 14 suspected warlords in connection with the destruction of properties worth billions of naira at Ndi-Iheme village, Ihe in Ishiagu, Ivo local government area of Ebonyi state.
Ndiobasi and Ndi Iheme, two neighbouring villages in Ihe, have been in dispute since 1996 when Ebonyi state was created.
Reports say Ndiobasi people, in 1996, accused Ndi Iheme people of receiving blessings from a deity in the area which the Ndiobasi regard as their goddess. They said that, by the action, their neighbours had blocked the blessings due to their community from the deity upon which they decided to evict Ndi Iheme from the area. However, the accused Ndi Iheme people have resisted that move, saying the area was their ancestral home.
This led to series of disputes between the two villages who, hitherto, had had cordial ties, including inter-marriage relations. The latest of the disputes unfolded last Sunday when Ndi Iheme was invaded with houses and other properties destroyed, many injured and domestic animals butchered.
Speaking to journalists who visited the community on Friday, 64-year-old retired school principal, Madukwe Cletus Ikechukwu, said the hoodlums appeared in black clothes. “It was a horrible experience on that Sunday early morning when they invaded our village. When I opened my door and came out because of heavy gunshots I heard at 12:15am of that Sunday, I saw young men dressed in black attire with axes, sledge hammers, guns, machetes.
“I immediately shut the door and went into the bush from where I had a clear view of things, it being a moon lit night. I was able to recognise some of them. That very night, luck ran out on them and they were apprehended by the police.
“It has been a protracted dispute. This thing started as soon as Ebonyi state was created in 1996 when Linus Ukachukwu was appointed chief of our community. Since then, the people of Ndi Obasi saw it as the opportunity to drive us away from the community to take over our land.
“They have been accusing us of taking the blessings due to them from the deity they worship in the community. They have been insisting that we must pack away from the community so that the blessing that is due to them can come to them. They have been doing everything possible to ensure that we go away from here.
In 1997, as can be verified at the police station, they wrote an undertaking to be of good behaviour. They had threatened to burn down our village and so ee went to the police and reported the matter, leading to their writing the undertaking to be of good behaviour. We thought they would abide by the undertaking but they just started harvesting our crops and destroying our things. We wrote to the police again and they were summoned by the police.”
Contacted, the police public relations officer, DSP Loveth Odah, confirmed the incident. She said a team of policemen and soldiers had arrested 14 persons who carried out the destructions in Ndi Iheme and that some offensive weapons were recovered from them.
“The DPO of Ivo has actually stopped the destructions and I can beat my chest that normalcy has returned to the area.”
She added that the police arrested about 12 persons, recovered some weapons and arrested an army captain from the Military Cantonment, Nkwagu, Abakaliki, who led the team to the area with the assistance of two other persons believed to have been hired from Abia state by the opposing village.
