Tag: Enugu News

Some gunmen suspected to be secessionists have set a filling station ablaze in Enugu.

Pinnacle Filling Station on Agbani Road was attacked at about 10 am yesterday by the gunmen who also burnt four cars belonging to different customers.

Our correspondent, who visited the scene of the incident, learned that the gunmen, numbering four, had come to the filling station in a Toyota Corolla car.

They were said to have snatched the nuzzles from the pump attendants and used it to splash fuel on the cars close to the pump before setting them on fire.

Read Also; Crisis is in DNA of PDP, APC tells Bauchi gov

It was further gathered that the gunmen also poured fuel into a 25-litre can with which they splashed fuel on the three vehicles in the car wash within the premises and set them ablaze.

Men of the Enugu State Fire and Emergency Service were seen battling to put out the fire while the state Commissioner of Police led his team to quickly assess the level of damage caused by the incident.

On the whole, while the filling station was touched, four vehicles were burnt beyond recognition.

The incident was said to have caused panic in the area, forcing business owners and residents in the area to quickly shut down.

Policemen also cordoned off Agbani Road, forcing motorists and commuters to use alternatives routes through Emeka Ebola to Amokwe and Uwani to Nise bus stops.

This is the second time the hoodlums would attack Pinnacle Filling station, owned by Governor Peter Mbah.

In June last year, the station at New Haven was attacked with police operatives foiling an attempt to totally raze the place.

The governor has been at the forefront of the sustained battle against sit-at-home and general insecurity in the state; a development that has rattled some criminal elements.

• Family pays N1.6m ransom to free mother, baby

A pregnant woman who was kidnapped while on her way to the hospital for delivery has reportedly given birth at the kidnappers’ den at Egede, Udi local government area of Enugu State.

The incident, which was said to have happened last Monday, aw the woman giving birth to a bouncing baby boy in the forest.

It was gathered that the woman whose name was given as Chinwendu Igwe, was with her two other little children aged between four and two years when the incident happened.

The lady’s husband, Mr. Ekene Igwe, who confirmed this to newsmen added that he paid a ransom of N1.6 million before effecting the release of his wife and child from the forest in Egede where the kidnappers asked him to deposit the ransom.

Igwe said that it was a kind motorcyclist who rescued his two kids abandoned on the road by the kidnappers.

Read Also: No to bully in schools

“I paid a ransom of N1.6 million before I could get my wife and new born baby,” he said.

Igwe who hailed from Attakwu Akegbe Ugwu Awkunanaw said he was grateful to God for getting wife his back in one piece.

Commenting on the incident the landlord of the Igwes at No. 5 Umugwu, Awkunanaw, Enugu South, Chief Emma Ugwu, Enyiduru,said that the rescued woman is now at the Parklane Hospital, Enugu where the governor of Enugu State is taking care of their welfare.

“We thank God for sparing the life of my tenant’s wife.  I am specially grateful to God that

Governor Mbah has intervened and is taking care of the woman and her kid at the Parklane Hospital,” he said.

Ugwu, the chairman of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Enugu South, however expressed shock that he had never witnessed such incident happen to a person close to him.

“I remain eternally grateful that God spared us what would have been a tragedy.  Such a thing has never happened to someone close to me,” he said.

The people of Obollo town in Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State have called on the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to wade in to stop a looming communal clash that is capable of consuming several lives if left unchecked in the area.

The people also accused a former governor of the state of using his allies and some high ranking police officers to instigate a crisis in the community in order to grab communal land.

The people, who also wrote a plea for urgent intervention, titled “Grand high level conspiracy aimed at creating communal war and incarcerating Obollo people on charges of terrorism” and addressed to the Inspector General of Police, said some compromised policemen had already perfected plans to arrest the people of the village and tagging them terrorists and IPOB members in order to keep them away for a long time by the time the imminent crisis erupts.

Spokesman of the community, Prince Matthew Agu, who spoke to newsmen at a press conference in Enugu at the weekend, disclosed that the ex-governor, as a sitting governor, had solicited for a large expanse of land, measuring over 70 acres, for the establishment of a dry sea port in Obollo-Afor, a request that was granted with the understanding that it was for public good.

Read Also; Oshiomhole’s reminiscences whet appetite

“But as the years rolled by, we discovered that he had tricked us into donating the land. It was clear that he was planning to grab the property for his personal use. We kicked against it because that land is not for anybody’s personal use,” Agu said.

He added that seeing that he could not achieve his plan of taking the land for himself, through the dry sea port story, the former governor resorted to engineering one of the clans in the community to claim ownership of the property, against an existing court order indicating that the land belongs to the entire Oha Obollo and not one particular clan.

Agu also narrated several attempts made by the ex-governor through a serving police DIG who hails from the same local government area to frustrate efforts to resolve the issue legally, alleging that the police in the state had been compromised.

“Inspector General, this is a high-level conspiracy against Obollo people to incriminate and cramp my people to jail in their own judgment. Recall that in my petition dated August 21, 2023, I told you about how a DIG, then a CP, had made himself available to make sure that my people of Obollo were dealt with criminally.

“Same with a former governor of the state who wanted this property for official purposes, but when the property was made available to him for that very purpose, he reneged and wanted to personalise our property using other guises.

“He has used his appointees and these he aided in the police force together with the judiciary to make sure that my people are destroyed to the extent that the police in Enugu turn a blind eye to whatever the judgement debtors do but flames to high heaven at the slightest opportunity to incriminate my people.

“In 2018, I, the leader of the community, was clamped to the prison yard, where I spent 8 days, and when the DPP wrote their report that I am the rightful owner of the property and brought me out of the prison yard, the then governor insisted that the then Attorney General must resign. This was to be, but for the intervention of late Justice C.C. Nweze of the Supreme Court.

“I strongly suspect that the officer in charge (OC) Legal has been compromised to ensure that the judgement debtors are in occupation while the judgement creditors go on a wild goose chase of seeking due process.”

The people vowed that they would use all legal means available to them to resist the forceful takeover of their land for personal use, regretting that the instigators of the crisis were only looking for mayhem in the town.

He therefore pleaded with the IGP to intervene so as not to allow the anger of members of the community to snowball into a full-blown crisis that could consume many lives and property, adding that the police boss should investigate the matter and return the judgement creditors back to their property.