Anambra community boils as vigilante kills youth, 40, over land 

By Felix Oti, Awka 

It came as shocking news in the Nawfia community in Njikoka local government area of Anambra state to hear the death of a forty-year-old man, Chukwudi Ejikeme, who died one month after an alleged organized attack masterminded by a vigilante group was launched on him.

The issue started when some members of the community who returned home for Christmas were said to have decided to visit the disputed Uruoji communal land where some excavations of sand were taking place without due authority.

It was gathered that Ejikeme, a Keke-NAPEP operator was attacked by some armed youth on that fateful day of January 7 this year, when he sustained a serious injury on the right eye.

  No fewer than six other persons were also said to have sustained various degrees of cuts on the upper eyelids, head, neck, arms and back following the said attacks.

Ill-luck, however, ran against Ejikeme who died a month after the eye injury attack, prompting angry youth to link his death to the attack and to carry his corpse from Nimo mortuary and block Old Enugu – Onitsha Road by Afor-Nawfia Market, yesterday, February 7, this year, in protest against his untimely death.

Bonfires were made with disused tires and planks while the rioting youth prevented some vehicles from passing through the road.

In an interview, one of the protesting youth, Chibuzo Onwujekwe, an Engineer fingered a senior lawyer from the community, Ikechukwu Nwofor who he accused of hijacking leadership of the community and allegedly fueling the crisis.

A viral video of the altercations at the sand quarrying site showed a man ordering Excavator operator and tipper driver to leave the sand dump which he claimed was illegally entered into at the behest of Nwofor.

When contacted, the community’s traditional ruler, Igwe Chijioke Nwankwo noted that the crisis erupted over claims of a certain number of plots by Nwofor who he accused of overstepping his bounds on the land area.

Igwe Nwankwo observed that the said Nwofor was purportedly encroaching into other lands outside the plots of land he seemingly got through a court judgment.

He said that the Land Use Act 1978 entrusted the custody of all communal land on the traditional ruler of every community, contending that, “some people are trying to take over the communal land in a commando form as if he owns the communal land.”

According to him, the ploy by those who want to allegedly use outright fraud to take over communal land was the reason his traducers attempted to remove him as the traditional ruler of Nawfia.

He said that the forceful entry into communal land is agitating the youth of the area who he said have been cautioned to remain calm and not take the law into their hands, he concluded.