By Ovat Abeng
A community leader and Vice Chairman of Obunagu Achalla village inEnugu Agidi community in Njikoka local government area of Anambra state, Ozo Ozoemena Obiora Okeke has narrated a frightening plot allegedly by some of his kinsmen to kill him.
He disclosed that at the center of the grouse of those after his life remains his dogged fight to prevent them from illegal and corrupt sales of large acres of land belonging to the four villages that make up Enugwu Agidi town.
Speaking with newsmen at his country home, Obunagu Achalla, revealed startling incidents that led to his kidnap twice between last year 2023 and 2024, saying that it was God who saved his life, apart from payment of ransom to suspected Fulani herders.
Ozo Okeke disclosed that it was the evil scheme of four of his kinsmen led by Mr. Emeka Ementa and others allegedly working in secret alliance with suspected Fulani herdsmen to eliminate him by all means for being a stumbling block to their grand design to continue to appropriate parts of the land and sell same to highest bidders while the community and its people continue to wallow in abject poverty.
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According to him, “My first experience was on October 17, 2023. It was the initial period the road in front of my house was being graded which they claimed that I sold the land to Ozo Jeff Nweke. This people invited the Fulani people to kidnap me so that I would bring out the money suspected to be paid for the land.”.
“I think this set of Fulanis are poor because they collected all my food stuff including garri, palm oil, salt among others. They discovered that I had only #22.00 in my bank account through phone and no other bank accounts. They wondered where the money they claimed that I realized from the land should be. They concluded it was mere allegation and I was freed.”
“The second invasion was in August 2024, after the peace meeting with my people, the Fulani kidnappers invaded my house again around 4pm that day and took me into the bush to Urum in Awka North local district before proceeding towards one shrine in Ukwulu. I stayed three days before they released me.”
But in a quick reaction, chairman of Obunagu-Achalla in Enugwu Agidi Community, Mr. Emeka Ementa on Thursday denied any link with Fulani herders to kidnap Ozo Ozoemena at any given time nor have any knowledge about the incident.
He admitted that the community at a meeting under his leadership agreed to suspend and ostracize Ozo Ozoemena and others for their sabotage of the corporate existence of the community by allowing with Ezinano Awka community on the controversial peace deal with Obunagu-Achalla village in Enugwu Agidi Community over their land.
“Well, I don’t have any contact with any kidnapping syndicate, I don’t even intend to. I am only saying that he (Ozoemena) should change his way of life; he has been known for this over years. The community only took normal cautions of the community to suspend him from our meetings and other activities. It was at a general meeting, not personal to me. So, I wouldn’t think and I never thought about that. Why would I kidnap him, for what?
“I have never heard of this kidnap of a thing. It is him forging this kidnap thing. It’s like a drama to me; it’s a forgery and I have not heard of it anyway. But Ozoemena has been known for this kind of behavior.
On the question of ancestral relationship between Ezinano Awka and Enugwu Agidi people over the land in dispute, Mr. Ementa explained that, “The land is called Agu-Nawgu because Nawgu people were living there before and part of it. After Nawgu was removed by the six communities of Awka, Isu, Enugwu Agidi, Nawfia, Amawbia and I think Okpuno. It’s a land gotten after a conquest and shared into six, everybody has theirs. Awka has their own and so are other communities.”
So, major part of that land is where Awka people are now contesting with us in court. The whole of that land, part of which of which is our ancestral land, they are joining both the ancestral land and that of Nawgu to the place they are dragging with us in court.”
“The court in it’s unanimous decisions gave it to us in three court sessions, the Awka court, High Court and Appeal Court.
“We are now asking the state government to use its good offices to intervene, because Enugwu-Agidi have suffered so much.”
