Yar’Adua, save us from Chime

The last is yet to be heard on the endless wars between brother communities of Oruku and Umuode in Nkanu East council area of Enugu state-Nigeria.

It will be recalled that the war had led to unquantifiable losses in the communities, as both thousands of lives and property running into billions of naira had perished. The war had been so life consuming that the Umuodes were, on two occasions, driven into exile. (Picture left shows Governor Chime; right below is IG Okiro & Prof. Barth Nnaji, down left is President Yar'Adua)

But a white paper recently released on the conflict by the government of Barrister Sullivan Chime continues to generate bouts of controversies and palpable tension in the troubled area. The white paper, in the main, mandates the Orukus to vacate the disputed Aguefi land for the Umuodes to occupy.

It has to be noted that the Orukus had, for centuries, cohabited in the area with their Umuode brothers. Perhaps, more annoying to the Orukus is the fact that they had more property than the Umuodes on the land. For instance, they had over 500 buildings while the Umuodes had slightly over a hundred!

The Orukus have told Chime’s white paper to go to hell and burn to ashes as far as it concerns their vacating their ancestral land for the Umuode who, they said, had been Awbias (aliens) in their community.

Beyond loud agitations over alleged moves to force them out of the land, the Orukus have dragged Governor Chime before President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

In a petition dated March 5, 2009, the community accuses the trio of Barth Nnaji, a robotic engineer, Ogbonnaya Onovo (Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) and Governor Chime of collusion in forcing them out of their ancestral land.

Both Nnaji and Onovo are from the Umuode stock. Onovo is, in particular, alleged to have reached an agreement with Chime to the effect that should he (Chime) assist his minority Umuodes acquire the disputed Aguefi land, he (Onovo) would, in turn, assist him (Chime) to realize his second term ambition come 2011.

The Oruku petition states in part: “The unfolding plot to forcibly uproot Oruku community is the culmination of a sinister political conspiracy between D.I.G Onovo, Prof. Bartholomew Nnaji (who hails from Umuode), and Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State. Facts at our disposal indicate that D.I.G Onovo, who is of the same Umuode stock from neighboring Akpugo town, acting in cahoots with Prof. Nnaji from Umuode, solicited the reciprocal support of Gov. Chime towards the cause of Umuode in their conflict with Oruku Community. In return, the D.I.G guaranteed Gov. Chime that in the likely event of his emergence as successor to the current Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Mike Mbama Okiro, whom he claims is due to retire from service by the first half of 2009, he (Onovo), employing the instrumentality of his would-be office as IGP, would work assiduously to ensure his re-election as Governor at all cost come 2011”.
The petition, among other things, calls on President Yar’Adua to institute an independent probe into the degree of involvement of DIG Ogbonnaya Onovo in the on-going Oruku, Umuode conflict, as well as ‘call Governor Chime to order in his maddening desire to uproot Oruku community from their ancestral land’

Read full text of the petition below:

ORUKU COMMUNITY
NKANU EAST LGA
ENUGU STATE
BOX 17877 (08052404075, 07032361127, 08034901139) (www.orukujiaba.org, E-mail ji_aba@yahoo.com)

5th February, 2009

The President
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Aso Rock Villa
Abuja

Sir,

PETITION ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE (D.I.G) OGBONNA ONOVO IN FUELLING THE ORUKU-UMUODE CONFLICT IN NKANU EAST LGA, ENUGU STATE

We have been mandated by the Oruku community in the Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State, and accordingly we hereby forward this petition for ourselves and on behalf of the entire members of the said Oruku Community, to demand among other things that Your Excellency use your good offices to cause thorough investigations into the extent of the involvement of the Deputy Inspector-General (D.I.G) of Police, Mr. Ogbonna Onovo, in fuelling, funding, and sustaining the protracted Oruku-Umuode communal conflict. This has become imperative in view of the potential of the on-going crisis to snowball into a far-reaching mayhem comparable in scale to the recent bloodbath in Jos, Plateau state.


2. CONSPIRACY BETWEEN GOVERNOR CHIME, D.I.G ONOVO AND PROF. BARTH NNAJI

The latest flare up in the conflict is a direct fall out of the contents of the state government’s White Paper on the Report of the Committee on Enumeration and Delineation of Houses and Boundary between Oruku and Umuode Communities that was approved by the State Executive Council on Wednesday, 28th of January, 2009. The White paper ordered the Oruku Community to vacate their ancestral homes, shrines, as well as graves of their forebears located in a section of the community known as Agu Efi land in order to pave the way for the re-settlement of Umuode Community, who have, from time immemorial, been the customary tenants of Oruku Community.

The unfolding plot to forcibly uproot Oruku community is the culmination of a sinister political conspiracy between D.I.G Onovo, Prof. Bartholomew Nnaji (who hails from Umuode), and Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State. Facts at our disposal indicate that D.I.G Onovo, who is of the same Umuode stock from neighboring Akpugo town, acting in cahoots with Prof. Nnaji from Umuode, solicited the reciprocal support of Gov. Chime towards the cause of Umuode in their conflict with Oruku Community. In return, the D.I.G guaranteed Gov. Chime that in the likely event of his emergence as successor to the current Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Mike Mbama Okiro, whom he claims is due to retire from service by the first half of 2009, he (Onovo), employing the instrumentality of his would-be office as IGP, would work assiduously to ensure his re-election as Governor at all cost come 2011.

It is this unwholesome pact, nay, quid pro quo, that underlines Gov. Chime’s hard line resolve to rob Peter in order to pay Paul; thus effectively reducing the Oruku community as mere pawns in the chess board of his vaulting political ambitions – victims of political intrigues in high places.

3. EMPLOYMENT OF INSTRUMENTALITY OF POLICE AGAINST ORUKU COMMUNITY

Ever before the present political scheme blew open, DIG Onovo has been instrumental to orchestrating, in fact funding and sustaining the conflict on the Umuode side by literally placing the awesome apparatus of the Police at their disposal at the divisional, state and federal levels, to the extent that 21 Oruku indigenes have been declared missing by their respective families, while dozens are languishing in various Police cells in the state whereas their adversaries, Umuode, move about as untouchables.

For instance, one Ikechukwu Ani from Umuode was, on the 21st day of April, 2008, apprehended by the Police, armed with an AK-47 automatic rifle with 24 rounds of live ammunition, as he laid an ambush for a team of Mobile Policemen and members of a panel set up by the state government on the Enumeration and Delineation of Houses and Boundary between the two warring communities. He was in the process of pulling the trigger when he was spotted by eagle-eyed Policemen, who professionally disarmed him (see SUNDAY SUN, May 25. 2008).. His statement to the Police was unambiguous – that the arms he was caught with were supplied to him by Prof. Barth Nnaji. It is well more than six months since the suspect made his confessional statement, but pressure and arms-twisting by DIG Onovo ensured that Prof. Nnaji has not even been invited by the Police on the matter. Worse still, the Police have since granted the self-confessed bandit bail and he is back to his trade, now even more emboldened than ever.

Similarly on Tuesday, 3rd February 2009, five men (indigenes of Oruku community), were arraigned before an Enugu Chief Magistrate Court on trumped-up charges on the orders and instigations of the Enugu State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Nduka Ikeyi and remanded indefinitely in ATM. One of those arraigned, Mr. Joseph Ani, a civil servant with the Ministry of Finance, Enugu, was picked up that same morning on his way to work; no statement was obtained from him by the Police, nor was any charge against him investigated to warrant an arraignment. Just this morning, Chief Raphael Onuma, a civil servant with Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, Park Lane was whisked away from his office by some Police men and taken to unknown destination. The case of the other four accused was no different as the Police did not file any information of their investigation. Mr. Ikeyi was quoted as saying (as he ordered their arraignment), that the conflict in the area persists because no Oruku indigene has been convicted and or sentenced to death so that the rest could draw appropriate lessons from it. Of significance is the fact that these innocent four were indeed picked up on their way home few days earlier by some members of the platoon of Mobile Policemen made available to Prof. Nnaji by none other than DIG Onovo. The question arises: what is the status of Prof. Nnaji that a platoon of 25 Mobile Policemen would be deployed to guard him 24 hours round the clock?

As a matter of fact, there is material evidence to show that regular financial support from the Super cop D.I.G Onovo, usually channeled through the auspices of Prof. Nnaji, is an important factor in the rising tide of violence and widespread skirmishes in the area. The sheer quantity of arms and ammunitions available to the Umuode is such that the federal government, mindful of the wave of communal upheavals across the country, not least of all, the last Jos crisis cannot but begin to interrogate their sources.

4. ROOTS OF THE ORUKU/UMUODE CONFLICT
Sir, the crux of the Oruku-Umuode conflict dates back to the flawed decision by the state government to create an autonomous community and recognize a traditional ruler for the Umuode population, hitherto, customary tenants of the Oruku Community who were dispersed in various parts of the 7 villages that make up the old Oruku Community. By that questionable decision, the state government deliberately presented the Oruku Community with a fait accompli, with Chime’s administration taking upon itself the dubious task to carve out a definite and exclusive territory that would be known and administered as Umuode Autonomous Community. From the onset, this task could only be accomplished at the expense of the Oruku Community.

Out of sheer magnanimity, the Oruku Community suggested the re-settlement of Umuode population on its virgin tract of land known as Abari. Regrettably, Gov. Sullivan Chime, arising from his pact with DIG Onovo and Prof. Nnaji, has exhibited palpable bias and manifest evidence of vested interest in the conflict by his overt and covert incitement of the Umuode clan to, on flimsy and irresponsible grounds, insist on Agu Efi land, a fully built-up quarter of the Oruku Community.

It beats the imagination that under a rule of law dispensation, the state government would set out in a most cavalier manner to violently evict Oruku families including aged people and pregnant women out of their ancestral homes including their shrines, graves and other cultural artifacts in order to pave the way for the re-settlement of the Umuode clan. This decision is contrary to the findings of the committee on Enumeration and Delineation of Houses and Boundary between Oruku and Umuode Community. The committee which was set up by Gov. Chime determined that out of the 560 compounds/houses enumerated by it on the ground in Agu Efi, less than 25% (or a total of 111) belongs to Umuode clan as against 449 compounds/houses that belong to Oruku people. By simple analytical presentation based on the numbers above, it is crystal clear, assuming there was no sinister bargain to be met by all means, that the balance of convenience in the matter favours the relocation of Umuode community to Abari land as determined by the Oputa panel report.

5. PRAYERS:

We earnestly urge Your Excellency to use your good offices to:

a. Institute an independent probe into the degree of involvement of DIG Ogbonna Onovo in the on-going Oruku-Umuode conflict.

b. Cause a comprehensive security intelligence report on the sources of the huge and sophisticated arms and ammunitions being used by the Umuode community in the conflict.

c. Promptly nip in the bud further escalation of violence in the Oruku-Umuode conflict with a potential to degenerate to widespread bloodbath that may engulf innocent citizens, including children and women.

d. Call Gov. Chime to order in his maddening desire to uproot Oruku community from their ancestral land.

We have absolute confidence in Your Excellency’s capacity to ensure that justice is not only done, but is seen to have been done in this matter.

Yours faithfully,



1. THEOPHILOUS OKEY ADENYI (President-General, Oruku Town Union )
2. CYPRAIN NWATU(Secretary-General) 4. MR. ANTHONY NNAJI Financial Secretary

(For and on behalf of Oruku Community.)