Posted by By John Ameh, Onitsha on
At least three persons have been injured in a fresh crisis which started in Nteje, Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State on Thursday.....
At least three persons have been injured in a fresh crisis which started in Nteje, Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State on Thursday.
Already, the police have arrested about 40 suspects in connection with the incident, which is not connected with the current violence in Onitsha.
Investigations by our correspondent on Thursday showed that about 35 houses were also attacked in Nteje, a growing commercial town located about 11 kilometres from Onitsha, while a businessman was reported to have lost N2 million.
It was gathered that trouble started at bout 1am when some youths went on the rampage, looting and vandalising property.
Our correspondent gathered that in one of the houses, the victim lost his five vehicles, including a Mercedes Benz E230.
The President-General of the Nteje Development Union, Chief Rowland Odegbo, attributed the attack to 'robbery and the activities of hoodlums" on Thursday.
'Those people came by night and operated between the hours of 1am and 3am, looting property and attacking houses.
'Some people were properly beaten; in one household, there was a woman who was thrown out with her children and they later burnt her mattresses," Odegbo told reporters.
The state police command, however, traced the 'genesis" of the crisis to alleged protests by some groups who were contesting Odegbo's position as the president-general of the union.
The Acting Commissioner in charge of the command, Mr. Haruna John, who confirmed the incident to our correspondent, however, added that the protests were in disobedience to a subsisting court order.
He said, 'Yes, in the long run, some of them and their sponsors may be charged for robbery because they went into people's houses and looted their property in spite of the fact that there was a court order restraining them. The same persons behind the crisis were the plaintiffs in the said suit, but the court ruled in favour of the current P-G.
'The decision of the court was that, he was duly elected; this has remained unchallenged.
'I had to call the parties to a meeting in my office, during which I presented the court papers, yet they went back and engineered the protests."
John added that the police were already on top of the situation and had restored calm in Nteje.
The state Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, in a reaction to the crisis in Nteje, defended his recent decision to outlaw all armed groups in the state, adding that such groups could easily be recruited for crises.