By Cajetan Mmuta, Awka
Indications have emerged on how the timely intervention of Anambra’s State Commissioner of Police, CP Obono Nnaghe Itam averted a bloodbath between people of the Ezinano community in Awka and Umuzuocha Community over disputed land in Awka South local government Area of the state.
Recall that hundreds of leaders, women and youths of the Ezinano Community had cried out for urgent help to CP Itam as armed police operatives of the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) allegedly threatened to shoot them to death in their ancestral land which the people of Umuzuocha are laying claim to as its owner.
Already, the police have cautioned the warring groups to exercise restraint and bring their complaints to the state police command for urgent attention and possible resolution of the case.
It was learnt that heavily armed SARS operatives had mounted a siege on the Ezinano community land on invitation by the Umuzuocha community.
Findings revealed that if not for the quick intervention of the State Commissioner of Police, CP Obono Nnaghe Itam who ordered that all the parties leave the scene immediately, there could have been a possible bloodbath.
Our Correspondent gathered that the people of the Ezinano Community in Awka had stormed their ancestral land which the Umuzuocha Community is laying claim as their own only to be confronted by several plain cloth SARS operatives who laid siege to the area.
Trouble was said to have started when the people of the Ezinano Community arrived at their land on hearing that members of the Umuzuocha Community had started erecting buildings indiscriminately on the disputed land.
The Umuzuocha people also started raising perimeter fences, erosion channels/gutters and other illegal structures on the land without recourse to pending cases in court and deployed police to the area to perfect their heinous crimes.
It was further learnt that Ezinano people on arrival were ordered by the SARS Operatives to leave the land or be sent to their early graves, a development that prompted them to raise alarm and urgently call on CP Nnaghe Itam for their rescue and to wade into the matter.
The people, during the stalemate, protested against police invasion of their land.
Mrs.Gloria Chiama, a farmer, called on the relevant authorities to call the police to order as “police do not meddle in matters of land dispute between communities and individuals rather maintain law and order.”
Earlier, elders and leaders of the Ezinano Community had written a petition dated September 11th 2024 to the chairman of, Police Service Commission (PSC) which was copied to the Presidency, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Complaint Response Unit of the Police Force Headquarters Abuja and Commissioner of Police, Anambra State against a senior police officer over alleged meddlesomeness in the same land.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the state command, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, when contacted on the phone, urged the leaders and people of the Ezinano Community to come forward with their complaints to the police in the state.
He said, “You are a professional, you know the truth; you and I have been in this Anambra for many years. This particular group (Ezinano people), if they have any issue should come straight to the command. If they have any issue, they have the numbers of the Commissioner of Police and they have my number; if they have any issue they can come to the command and lay their complaints.”
