In the past few years, increased communal clashes in some communities across Enugu State, Southeast Nigeria, have resulted in dozens of avoidable deaths, injuries and destruction of properties. However, some residents and stakeholders have put forward proactive, appropriate and quick measures to nip the situation in the bud. DAMIAN DURUIHEOMA reports.
Enugu State, Southeast Nigeria, is bedevilled by challenges that constantly lead to avoidable loss of lives and properties. While some communities have been battling invasions, destructions and killings by herdsmen, others have also suffered unmitigated kidnappings allegedly by herdsmen and other criminal elements often referred to as unknown gunmen.
However, one of the worrisome challenges that hardly receive sincere attention is communal clashes. In recent years, communal clashes have become a regular occurrence, but only clashes that claimed several lives and properties received adequate media coverage.
The most notable of these were the Oruku crisis and Akpawfu killings, all in Nkanu East Local Government Area of the state; Oyofo and Awha crises in Ezeagu Local Government Area, Mgbowo in Awgu Local Government Area and the most recent, the inter-communal dispute in Ikolo Community in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area, among others.
Expectedly, these clashes resulted in deaths, burning of houses and shops, foodstuff and people were displaced from their homes in droves.
Findings by our correspondent show that at the core of these hostilities are the bloody battles for supremacy and the control of land in various affected communities. There are also crises occasioned by leadership tussles.
Only recently, tension escalated in the Ikolo Community when three youths from neighbouring Aku Town in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State, reportedly went missing after visiting the home of one Mr. Chibueze Anidiobi, a herbalist from Ikolo on August 1, 2024.
Interestingly, a few days after the strange disappearance of the three youths, the leadership of the Aku Youths General Assembly organised a search party to locate the missing youths. However, four members of the search party were allegedly gruesomely murdered in the process.
It was gathered that the three missing young men from Aku identified as Frank Didigwu, Chibuike Nnadi and Obiora Dugwu had gone to Ikolo to seek traditional medicine for the sick mother of one of them.
A village source, who narrated the incident, told reporters that one of the missing people contacted his sister immediately after they got to Ikolo to inform her of their safe arrival.
“Immediately they got to the premises of the herbalist, one of the victims called his sister, confirming that they had been brought to the residence of the herbalist and awaited their turn to be attended to.
“Since that call, the three young men have not been seen or heard from, and their phones have remained switched off.
“Shockingly, the three Aku boys are yet to be seen; their whereabouts remain known,” he said.
It was further gathered that the search party, which began its journey on Thursday, August 8, was allegedly ambushed by armed people suspected to come from Ikolo, leading to the killing of four of them, while others were said to have sustained gunshot injuries.
However, in a reverse attack about nine months earlier, particularly on November 28 2023, no fewer than two persons from Ikolo were declared missing and 17 houses burnt down, following an alleged invasion of the community by youths from the Aku Community.
While none of the missing people had been seen till date, it was learned that properties worth millions of naira were lost in that attack alone.
According to the people of the community, over 50 youths from the neighbouring Aku community swooped on them around 2:00 a.m. with guns, machetes and petrol bombs with which they set many houses on fire.
In March this year, four people from Aku were severely afflicted with machete cuts by the armed youths, reportedly from Ikolo. The victims included Chinonso Ogbebe, Dan Mbah, Akunaesiobike Ike and Ogbu Chekwube who narrowly escaped death.
The Ikolo/Aku killings have been blamed on a protracted boundary dispute between the two neighbouring communities of Aku and Ikolo.
In another development, in April 2024, the people of Akpawfu Community in Nkanu East Local Government Area conducted two mass burials for no fewer than 20 people who were killed during the crisis that befell the community over a protracted land dispute.
While Umuanigbiyovo Oyiwode and Akpawfu conducted a mass burial for eight members of the community, Umu Ani Oyiwode Akpawfu as well as many others did the same. There were also several missing people, who are yet to be seen since the crisis got out of hand in 2021.
During the crisis, which left hundreds of people of the community fleeing the town as they were rendered homeless, numerous properties owned by several members of the community, particularly at Ajame Ameze Akpawfu Autonomous Community were destroyed. Other houses and shops were looted; as individuals lost thousands of drums of stored palm oil, yam and maize barns, motorcycles and livestock. These properties are worth millions of naira.
In yet another instance in August last year in the Ezeagu Local Government Area, no fewer than four people lost their lives while properties worth millions of naira were destroyed when Oyofo and Awha communities clashed over land disputes in the area.
In June this year, Umu-Ezuboke Village in Umualor Community in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area of Enugu State witnessed a gun attack from their neighbours, Amankanu which left no fewer than four people hospitalised with multiple gunshot wounds. The matter was a dispute over land which spans over 500,000 hectares.
There have been several others, which have been happening without any strong action by the state government to arrest the situation and bring the perpetrators to book permanently.
‘Government’s insensitivity, negligence fueling crises’
While some of the communal clashes were fueled by a proliferation of small arms and light weapons in remote and marginalised areas in communities where government presence is generally light, others are caused by the unbridled quest by some individuals to forcibly take over communal lands without due process.
However, findings show that the state government’s inability to identify and focus on early warning signs had been the major energy fueling the crises in the communities. It was believed in many quarters that the state government paid deaf ears to the cries of people of the affected communities, who usually lose several lives, properties and livelihoods after each incident without consequences. In situations where the government gets involved, its engagement only ends as the last incident fades; thus, its inability to track whatever happens thereafter.
Some affected communities lamented that they had trusted the state government and security agencies to use their good judgment to intervene and ensure that similar incidents did not reoccur.
They added that before each crisis escalated, they usually sought the state government’s intervention for peaceful resolution but the result was that the issues were treated with levity until lives and properties were lost in the process.
“This, in itself, is very dangerous because it only shows that the government is very insensitive to the plights of its citizens. If not, how can a government hear about threats to lives and property of its citizens and pretend that all is well?” a civil rights activist and public affairs commentator, Mr. Daniel Ukwu, queried.
Our correspondent learned that during the early signal of brewing trouble, the affected communities usually alert the police or raise the alarm through the media for possible solutions, which, most times, never came.
For instance, before the Ikolo/Aku crisis took a devastating dimension, the leaderships of the two communities had separately begged the state government to wade into the matter, by helping to demarcate their boundaries, without any favourable response. The communities had been locked in a long-standing land dispute which the government had failed to resolve.
The traditional ruler of Ikolo Community, Gabriel Ezugwu, and other leaders of the community had, in November last year, after an attack on his community, complained that every November, his people experience severe attacks from their neighbours, Aku people, who they alleged were sponsored by a certain politician.
“These incidents have been constant. Every November, they come to attack us. Sadly, all these things are happening, but the police have not made any arrests.
“Instead of arresting Aku people who are the aggressors, they will turn around and arrest our people. I called the Neighbourhood Watch and they were able to repel the attack. But, before then, 12 houses were burnt down, while five houses were completely destroyed.
“The issue is about land. I have invited the boundary committee to share the land, but they have not done that,” the monarch lamented.
Few months after that, leaders of Aku Community also called on the Enugu State Government to urgently demarcate its boundary with the neighbouring Ikolo Community to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
The President-General of Akutara Enu Autonomous Community in Aku, Chief Sylvanus Akarekwe, who spoke on behalf of the leaders, noted that though the Ikolo Community was just a fraction of their community in terms of number, Aku leaders have been able to avoid the temptation of going out for reprisals because they are law-abiding.
Similarly, when the crisis began in Akpawfu Community, the government and security agencies were notified, even though there was no positive action as the crisis continued to fester.
Findings showed that when eventually the government attempted to get involved on the matter, it took sides with one of the parties to the crisis, thereby achieving only peace of the graveyard. It was the same pattern in most of the affected communities.
The way forward
According to the founder of the Daniel Ukwu Leadership Foundation (DULF), Mr. Daniel Ukwu, one of the ways to curb the incessant killings resulting from communal clashes is for the state government to have the political will to take proactive, appropriate and quick measures towards tackling complaints relating to communal crises.
He said: “Leadership is all about being proactive, giving protection to lives and properties of the citizens and giving people the sense of responsibility to help nip the situation in the bud. Most times, destructive conflicts persist and escalate because of a lack of strong, genuine, honest and sincere political will and commitment to resolve them. This is because most of the government’s responses have been elitist, fire brigade approach, superficial and very simple and temporary.
“I think the focus of the state government should be to examine the innate factors that act as enablers of the communal conflicts.
“First, the government’s efforts should not just be reactionary to the clashes, which is followed by efforts to restore peace. Such efforts will only achieve fleeting normalcy. It is important to have a thorough understanding of the triggers of violence in areas that are prone to communal clashes.
Ukwu added that focusing on early warning signs is very important, saying that early warning signs may not guarantee sustainable peace, but will help to curb serious disputes.
He also urged the state government to promote dialogues and an efficient criminal justice system as effective peaceful mechanisms for resolving conflicts.
“Arguably, conflict situations are likely to occur as human interactions are unavoidable. However, the idea of the government is to ensure that people go about their duties and pursue survival in a way that does not threaten the existence of others.
“Finally, the government must make peace initiatives targeted at communal conflicts to be an all-inclusive affair. In Igbo land, every community has a generally accepted way of traditionally resolving land disputes, by engaging village elders and customary authorities. Also, youths must be involved in solving any communal crisis as they are usually the instruments used in perpetrating violence,” Ukwu said.
He also emphasised that the appointment of traditional leaders should be based on character issues because “when traditional leaders with good character are in a leadership position, some of these ugly developments can be addressed timely and decisively before they snowball into big problems.”
