Posted by Eric Ugbor on
FOR 68-year old Chief Thomas Ajah of Ogwor Community in Ishiagu, Ivo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, life will never be the same.....
FOR 68-year old Chief Thomas Ajah of Ogwor Community in Ishiagu, Ivo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, life will never be the same again after he watched helplessly as hoodlums shot dead his pregnant wife, Elizabeth. They just wedded early this year.
Ajah's wife is one of the two persons killed in the communal clash in the community just as several persons were injured and properties worth millions of Naira destroyed.
Apart from Ajah's wife that was murdered by the hoodlums, his uncle, Mr. Ude Ajah, was hospitalized at Ebonyi State University Teaching Hospital as a result of machete cuts sustained during the incident.
Explaining his ordeal, the husband of the deceased woman alleged he was home on that fateful day when a group of hoodlums invaded his house at about 11.OO-11.3Oam, broke the iron protectors and louvers of his doors and windows and shot dead his wife.
They later moved to Okwe village of the same community where they allegedly murdered another person, Chief John Elendu Oti, a former PDP ward chairman.
11 suspects have been arrested by the police in connection with the incident, while others including a chairmanship aspirant, declared wanted by the state police command, are still at large.
The crisis in Ishiagu is both political and economic. The economic pertains to a mineral deposit in the area. Since thirty years ago a foreign mining firm, Crushed Rocks Company Limited, opened a big quarry in Ishiagu, that has become a goldmine for both the company and the community.
The immediate past chairman of Ivo Local Government Area, Chief James Nweke, told Sunday Vanguard that proceeds from the company had become a source of crisis for youths in the area.
Nweke revealed that there had been struggle over which faction of the youths should collect toll from the firm after the Ishiagu Development Union, ICDU President, Cletus Ike Nga, inaugurated those to be collecting it.
He stated that 'about a month ago another faction came up saying they wanted to form a parallel government and started collecting toll at another point at Ishiagu and that caused a fight."
Nga, in an interview, said that the struggle for the control of the tollgate sparked off initial disturbances that caused the leadership of the town union to report to both the police and the military at Nkwagu cantonment.
The military was said to have responded to the report, leading to the arrest of six youths believed to be loyal to the faction opposing the leadership of the ICDU. 'The military came and picked six of them with arms and ammunition; pump actions and other weapons were also recovered from them. I think they were patrolling looking for where to cause trouble before they were caught. They are in detention now", he said.
The ICDU president recalled that on July 13, the hoodlums attacked his house. 'I travelled then. They were looking for me to slaughter but thank God I was not around", Nga stated.
He observed that the crisis was not all about ICDU, stressing that 'the sponsors of the crisis know why they brought the arms to terrorize the people".
He alleged that a former Senator and another lawmaker were sponsoring the crisis.
He said the crisis was motivated by a political struggle over who controls Ishiagu.
Nga explained that since 2001 when the former Senator lost out in a political battle, he had not been happy with the political situation of the area.
The ICDU boss stated that the erstwhile Senator had vowed to control the political structure of the area as a prelude to his presidential ambition. Nga alleged that the former Senator released N3million to one chairmanship aspirant to procure arms which they had been using to terrorize the community.
He also accused the other lawmaker of stockpiling arms with which he used to intimidate all those perceived to be opposed to his political ambition.
Nga explained that his relationship with the former Senator went sour when he insisted on contesting the ICDU presidency.
He stated that the former Senator never wanted him to contest the position which he later won.
He said 'since then, the former Senator never wanted to see me and he sees my position as threatening to his ambition of regaining the political structure in Ishiagu land".
Corroborating the allegations of the ICDU president, Nweke narrated that the crisis in Ishiagu had political connotation 'because, a lawmaker swore to remove Ike as president of ICDU because of a misunderstanding; and he has tried it by inviting police against him severally. He has taken him to Abakaliki, Abuja, to EFCC Lagos, and when those things could not work, he diverted to get to him through the youths. And that's what he has succeeded in doing.
'... Those people perpetrating this act are not doing it for nothing. They are paid for what they do. So, that fateful day, some of us who were here in Abakaliki learnt of it and informed the police. On June 17, it happened, the two groups clashed. The one allegedly sponsored by the lawmaker took to the streets and killed the victims. The pregnant woman was my uncle's wife; they went to their house and shot the woman inside the parlour. I was the person that took the two corpses to the mortuary.
'We have seen what they have done and we want government to arrest the culprits because people were there when it was done. The mob killed the woman and the husband recognized most of them. And we know that the lawmaker is the person allegedly causing the crisis. He is the person allegedly sponsoring the chairmanship aspirant and his colleagues to cause confusion, to set up a parallel government as against what the ICDU president had done. My family has called him to come and carry the corpse. For now, we are going to meet as a family and tell the government that if they cannot fight it, we will fight it on our own, that the law should take it course", the former council chairman said.
But, in a statement, the lawmaker said that anybody linking him to the problem in Ishiagu was just being mischievous.
'As a representative of the people, I got a phone call from my constituency office that there was a problem among the youths of the town over the administration of their toll plaza", he said.
He denied ever sending anybody to kill or cause disturbance in the town, saying, 'I don't belong to the youth body, neither has it any political undertone. From what I was made to understand, it was purely an affair of the youths of the town".