On a Tinder-box

Ezekiel Chukwuemeka Okakpu

The ancient town of Ogbunike in Oyi local government area of Anambra state is currently sitting on a tinder-box, as tempers rise, once again, among natives of Osile village
Osile village in ancient
By Okechukwu Obenta, Awka
Ogbunike town, country home of late Senate President, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, is currently sitting on a tinder-box. The skirmishes which engulfed the sleepy village about two years ago, during which about six of the natives lost their lives and about 75 buildings torched appear set to re-enact itself.
Already, a native of the area was about three weeks ago gruesomely sent to his untimely grave by a group of youths suspected to be out to avenge the death of their kinsmen who lost their lives during the 2007 crisis. The victim, one Ezekiel Chukwuemeka Okakpu was roasted after being butchered in broad daylight in the village on Saturday, November 28, 2009 by a group of youths in the area. Two opposing factional leaderships exist in Osile. Also, many of the natives have currently gone into self-exile for fear of being killed.
Most of those who are currently on exile are largely members of the village vigilante group.For instance, two members of the vigilante group, Felix Maduagwuna, Secretary of the security outfit, and Nwoye Obinwa are already on self-exile. The duo who spoke to The Source in their hide-out on Saturday, December 5, said they were forced to leave the town because they have been penciled down to be eliminated by those who killed Okakpu.
Okakpu, former Secretary of the famous but now defunct Onitsha Markets Amalgamated Traders Association (OMATA) under Chief G. U.Okeke as chairman was the chairman of Ogbo- Isato,the village’s home government. So, the manner he was roasted to death by the youths, after inflicting him with matchete cuts in full glare of over 400 people at the venue of a marriage ceremony, left most members of the vigilante group with no other option than to leave the town.
The duo of Maduagwuna and Obinwa further revealed that some prominent indigenes of Ogbunike town have also been penciled down for assassination. Among those in this category, according to them were Dennis Ofodile, E . B .C Ofoche and Charles Agulefo, all engineers. Others include Nweke Onuorah, Uche Okoye, and Nnabuife Egbuonu.
Onuorah, according to the duo only escaped being assassinated by the whiskers a day after Okakpu was killed. The hoodlums, Obinwa said, had stormed Onuorah’s residence when he was not in the house, and disappointed but rather they took away two of his goats.
Osile village had been torn into shreds since the skirmishes which occurred in the area on March 2, 2007. As a result, the village had been balkanised under two opposing leaderships of Osile Welfare League (OWL), the umbrella body of the village. While Mike Aniekwena leads one faction as the President-General (PG), the other camp is under the headship of one Luke Chirah.
  As a result of the lingering mutual suspicion and struggle for supremacy between the two opposing camps– a development which has left the natives to live in constant fear of each other– some illustrious indigenes of the area in the diaspora, including those leaving in Lagos, Abuja and London had few days before Okakpu’s murder convened a peace meeting between the two factions in far-away Abuja, Nigeria’s capital territory to provide a neutral ground for the contending parties to attend, brainstorm and adopt measures that would guarantee sustainable peace in the area. Principal conveners of the Abuja peace meeting were Chiefs George Chiozie and Clement Chinyelugo Enefe.
Among the far- reaching resolutions arrived at the Abuja meeting, The Source gathered, was the harmonisation of the membership of the village vigilante group to reflect membership of the two factional leaderships. But even at that, the Chirah group felt short-changed at the Abuja meeting. Only three members of his camp attended the meeting, as against a total of 16 loyalists of Aniekwena who were present. Chirah was rather blamed for the poor representation by members of his camp at the meeting. Aniekwena made it clear that Chirah was given the sum of N50,000 to transport some members of his camp to the meeting, but he chose to sponsor only two persons and himself.
Meanwhile, on that fateful Saturday, November 28 that Okakpu was killed, the leadership of the two factions and their principal members were invited to the Central Police Station (CPS), Nteje by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Kanayo Uzuegbu, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) to a peace meeting. He had conveyed to the leaders the directive of the state Commissioner of Police (CP), Philemon Leha, that the village vigilante group be harmonised to reflect members drawn from the two camps and that they would be held responsible in the event that there was any breakdown of law and order in the area. The vigilante group was also to work hard to checkmate criminal activities in the area, particularly in the fast-approaching yuletide season. So, the police boss directed the leaders of the two groups to go home and nominate persons into the vigilante group and forward their names to his office for proper accreditation. As a mark of total reconciliation, the DPO was said to have directed the warring camps to come back to the police station after harmonising the vigilante group, promising that he would kill a goat to entertain them.
The Source, however, learnt that leaders of the groups even before leaving the police station did not leave the DPO in any doubt that his peace overtures were not accepted. Both Aniekwena and Chirah were said to have there and then engaged each other in altercation blaming each other for the crisis in the village.
From the meeting with the DPO, Okakpu had gone straight to the traditional marriage of the daughter of one of his relatives, one Sunday Okafor in company of Nwoye Obinwa and Felix Maduagwuna who are also his kinsmen. It was at the venue of the traditional marriage that Okakpu met his untimely death.
Obinwa and Maduagwuna told The Source that it was while Okakpu was attending to the in-laws that one Uchenna Egwim confronted him with the issue of some indigenes of the village who were killed during the March 2, 2007 skirmishes. Uchenna was said to have lost his immediate elder brother in the crisis. The name of the deceased was given as Anthony Egwim.
Just as Okakpu was being interrogated by Uchenna, Obinwa said that a group of youths armed with cutlasses, axes and even guns and other dangerous weapons stormed the arena. He gave the names of the boys as Obinna Udendu, Charles Gwacham and Uzo Nwanne. According to him, the angry youths after inflicting Okakpu with matchete cuts set him ablaze along with some motorcycles. Obinwa said that he had to escape through the fence when he saw what the boys were doing to Okakpu.
Chijioke Okakpu, an amputee and elder brother of the late Okakpu lamented the gruesome murder of his brother in interview with The Source. Late Okakpu left behind a wife,Nonyelum and four children. The eldest has just finished Senior Secondary School, while the youngest is in JSS II.
When contacted to react on the development, particularly on his role in the peace moves, Chirah declined to make any comment, He rather said that he would prefer to speak at a later date, though he was not specific.
But as it is now, Osile village is currently a deserted area. When contacted, the image-maker of the state police command, Emeke Chukwuemeka, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), confirmed the assassination of one person in the area and said that a crack team of men of the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID), has been detailed to fish out the killers of Okakpu. He also stated that the situation in the area has been brought under control as the CP has deployed a unit of mobile policemen to the troubled village.
Investigations by The Source however, revealed that the bottled- up anger over the 2007 skirmishes is responsible for the latest rising of tempers in Osile. The situation is a clear indication of the failure of the various peace efforts so far initiated into the Osile crisis which principally revolves around two illustrious indigenes of the ancient town, the traditional ruler, Igwe John Umeyniora and the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, Professor Ilochi Okafor, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
Trouble had developed between Umenyiora and Okafor when the latter as Vice-Chancellor of UNIZIK got the university to establish a business venture, NAUOSIL -water production factory in the area. It is a collaborative venture between indigenes of the village and the university. But the traditional ruler, who had acquired some acres of land in the village in the ’70s felt aggrieved that the location of the factory in the area was deliberately instigated by Okafor in other to dispossess him of the land and slight him. The Source learnt that the Osile community had in the ’70s leased some acres of their natural heritage to the traditional ruler, who had promised to set up an industry there. But more than 30 years down the line, he did not do anything on the land. He rather started acquiring more land adjacent to the one leased to him.
The traditional ruler is alleged to have instigated some Osile indigenes that wrecked havoc at the factory, destroying equipment already installed at the site. He was said to have brain-washed his loyalists in the area to the effect that contrary to Okafor’s claims, the water factory was his private venture with some other prominent indigenes of the village, including Emma Ofoche, former Principal Secretary in Office of the Governor of Anambra state and Professor Tagbo Nwufo, deputy vice-chancellor (Academics), University of Jos. The development was partly responsible for the 2007 mayhem that befell the community and wrecked havoc there.
Following the ugly incident, Governor Peter Obi in his several visits to the town sued for peace in the area. The state government even reconstructed the building belonging to the oldest man in the area which was also torched.
The Government later set up the Justice Amaizu Judicial Panel of Inquiry to look into the disturbance, but the panel was later to be encumbered because of a court order obtained by the Okafor group against it. The group had felt that the panel was not competent to hear the case because the Chairman during his service as a judge had adjudicated on the Osile land matter.
Also, top religious leaders from the area, including Bishops E. C.I. Okoye of Good News Bible Church, Mike Okonkwo of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), Chris Efobi of Aguata Anglican Diocese and late Victor Onuigbo of Victory International, Enugu had mediated in the crisis. Also, Rt. Rev. Monsignor Dennis Chidi Isizoh , an indigene of Osile resident in the Vatican city had also mediated in the crisis.
Igwe Umenyiorah was however remanded in prison custody for nearly one month on the order of Chief Magistrate Nwoye of Nteje Chief Magistrate court following the crisis. He had then warned that no external powers, including the state Government, Police and even the Court can broker peace in the Osile crisis until the various gladiators are ready to sheathe their swords and embrace peace.
Incidentally, although none of the two gladiators are natives of the crisis-infested village, both of them however have peculiar stakes in the area. For instance, while Umenyiora is the traditional ruler of the entire Ogbunike, Okafor is the custodian of the land by virtue of his traditional title as “Akajiani” and also the fact that his mother hailed from Osile.