Disturbing Picture: Reign of terror as thugs invade Ebonyi villages

Posted by admin Ebonyi, Headlines, State News Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Pa Callistus Njoku paints a pathetic picture. Meeting him, it is not difficult to observe that his life is in shambles. His mien reveals debilitating pains, agony and anguish.

An indigene of Ndiegu Itsu village, Ndiezechi community in Izzi Local Government area of Ebonyi State, he began to swim in the ocean of sorrow on April 2, 2011 when a group of political thugs invaded his compound. Their mission was to steal, destroy and kill. And these they accomplished.
According to the 75-year old one time chairman of the old Abakaliki Council in the 1980s, he lost virtually everything he had laboured to acquire over the years during the raid.

His voice quaked in agony and tears streamed down his aged face as he narrated how hoodlums looted some of his valuables and destroyed others. To rub it in, they set his seven-month pregnant wife ablaze. And the young mother of four died. Worse still, he cannot bury his dead wife as his attackers are still on the prowl threatening to give him the same treatment.

He said: “When they came, they were shouting: ‘Where is Njoku? Where is Njoku? Where is Njoku?’ Sensing trouble, I managed to escape through the window. I only had a wrapper around my waist; I was not even putting on a shirt. Unfortunately, my wife couldn’t escape. The hoodlums broke the windows of the house. They ordered my wife to lie face down so that she would not recognise them. But I was able to identify some of them from my hiding place. Then they poured fuel inside my house and set fire on it.

My wife, who was seven months pregnant, was burnt.”
Speaking with our correspondent in Abakaliki, capital of Ebonyi State, Njoku said that apart from killing his wife and burning his houses, the thugs also went into his large barn, looted yams and destroyed those they couldn’t take way. He added that when they were done with his property, they went to his son’s house and looted the place before setting it ablaze.

According to Njoku who had earlier lost his first wife, his only crime was that he rejected overtures to dump the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before the last general elections. Maintaining that he knows those who invaded his home and killed his wife, he fingered a traditional ruler and an ex-commissioner as the masterminds of the attack.

Pa Njoku was not the only one visited by the thugs. Indeed, a deep feeling of sorrow pervades the neighbouring Ndiubia Ezza Inyimagu community in Izzi Local Government Area. Scarred by the physical and psychological wounds as well as the material losses, many families are so traumatized even as the peace in the community is fading faster than a tropical sunset.

It was gathered that the property of over 30 people were either looted or destroyed by the rampaging thugs. The attacks followed almost the same pattern in all the communities. The victims include Chief Alfred Igwe Anthgony Okwu, Samuel Nwuda, Bonifa Ochokwu, John Ovuoba, Chukwuma Nwaibo, Nwaoba Nwaibo, Cletus Opoke, Augustine Iziogo and Chigbogu Obele.

Igwe, a retired civil servant and businessman, said that when the thugs invaded his compound in the wee hours of March 31, “they broke into my house, dragged me out of the house and started beating me with wood. They also slapped my back several times with the back of machetes. Then they ordered me to sit on the ground and say my last prayer.” Asserting that he was able to identify some of his attackers, he said his daughter in-law, Mrs Ifeoma Igwe, was injured on her back even as her shop was burnt down.

Igwe said: “After severely beating me, they took me and my daughter-in-law to Iziogo police station and dumped us there. The policemen on duty didn’t even bother to listen to us let alone arresting our attackers. When they got information that my condition had worsened, they came back and put me in the booth of one of their cars and took me to the Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki. But when my people got information about my whereabouts, they took us to St Peter’s Hospital, Abakaliki for proper treatment.”

The 60-year-old man alleged that apart from the N225, 000 and other valuables from his compound, his Toyota Carina E car, motorcycle and other property were set ablaze on the orders of a PDP chieftain and government official. Some of the other victims also told similar heart-rending stories. They claimed that their attackers were armed with guns, machetes, axes and iron rods, among other weapons.

Explaining that they were attacked because they are members or supporters of the ANPP, they said they have been declared persona non grata in their homeland. Investigations revealed that the ancestral lands, farmlands and other properties of some of the victims have been confiscated and they have been asked to pay some levies before they can repossess their properties.

Meanwhile, the victims have petitioned the Ebonyi State Police Commissioner seeking intervention and justice. Dated April 6, the petition signed by Barrister Godwin N. Onwusi, lead partner of Godwin Onwusi & Co stated: “Our clients further informed us that the thugs were working in connivance with police authorities in Iziogo because uniformed policemen accompanied them in their bus during their escapades. This, according to our clients, explains why as soon as they were severally dumped at the Iziogo police post, they were hurriedly clamped into the cell without being asked any questions.

“Our clients further informed us that though they were brutalized at different points in Iziogo and Ndieze communities, they were all dumped individually at Iziogo police post from where they were sent to the state CID, Abakaliki through Iboko police station and that it was at the state CID that they saw that they were being charged for attempted murder.

What a double jeopardy?
“Furthermore, our clients informed us that apart from those listed here whose voter’s cards were taken by the hoodlums, not less than 200 other villages in Iziogo area have been dispossessed of their voter’s cards by the same group.”

The leadership of the ANPP is also insisting that justice must be done.
Efforts to get the reaction of the Ebonyi State Police Command on the matter proved abortive as the mobile telephone of the Public Relations Officer (PRO), John Eluu, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) was called many times without response.

-Sunwp_posts