Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth wing has condemned the alleged summon of the Uzo-Uwani local government chairman, Mr Chijioke Ezugwu by the Enugu State police command.
The group said should the harassment of the LG chairman continue, it would be left with no option than to mobilize the Igbo youths for a mother of all protests.
DAILY POST reports that rampaging herdsmen have killed scores of people in Uzo-Uwani in the past weeks, leading to the strengthening of internal security to safeguard the residents.
However, according to SaharaReporters, the council boss was summoned, alongside the vigilante group, to the state police command headquarters.
According to the media platform, “The DCP, a northerner, reportedly interrogated the council chairman “on the allegations of killing herdsmen.
“The aim was to stop the council chairman from flushing out the criminals and kidnappers who have been masquerading as herders to unleash terror on the people.”
In a statement issued by the National President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, he described the reported summon of the council chairman as unacceptable.
Okwu, while urging the police to come clean on the allegation, said it was lamentable that the police made no serious effort to arrest the herdsmen who have killed several persons in Uzo-Uwani but were quick to summon the council chairman for securing his people.
He said the group had waited to see if the police could refute the report, “but their silence means that indeed the council chairman was summoned for protecting his people.”
The Ohanaeze youth president, who claimed that what is going on in Uzo-Uwani was worse than Benue, noted that “the cases there are underreported. There is hardly any day that Fulani herdsmen are not either abducting people for ransom or launching unprovoked attacks on communities in the area.
“One of the worst cases is that of the 90-year-old man murdered in cold blood, alongside his wife.
“But in all of these, the police have not arrested the perpetrators, nor stopped the carnage.
“The only respite that came was through the vigilante groups who decided to protect their communities, only to the failure of the police to safeguard them.”
He said it was then unacceptable that instead of collaborating with the council boss to sustain the efforts, the police decided to embolden the perpetrators by extending such a summon to the chairman.
He urged the Enugu State Police Command to come clean on the allegations, else the public could perceive it as “emboldening those killing, maiming, and sacking communities in Uzo-Uwani and other parts of Enugu State.
“Should this harassment continue, we will be left with no option than to mobilize the entire Igbo youths for a mother of all protests.”
