Lawmaker flays herdsmen’s attack in Abia community
Onyeani said there is need for security agencies in the state to curb the excesses of Fulani herdsmen while those who were involved in the attack on members of his constituency should see brought to book.
Speaking with The Nation in Umuahia after visiting the wounded farmers, Onyeani warned that Abam people are known warriors and should not be pushed to the wall as the people could react in a way that will be unpleasant. He noted that the people of Abam have resolved to bepeaceful and law abiding.
He said, “Our resolve to be peaceful and law abiding should not be taken for granted, we want the herdsmen to leave our place and the entire Arochukwu Local Government Area. We want the security agencies in the state to live up to expectation, the members of the state assembly had during one of their sittings decided that herdsmen should not be
carrying fire arms and same was reached during a meeting between the police, herdsmen and indigenes which herdsmen have flouted”.
The Abia lawmaker was visibly angry over the development, saying that he is not happy that his people were harmed by herdsmen with dangerous weapons, stressing that these were the kind of stories people were hearing happening in Enugu and Benue states, but now it has gotten to us”.
He said, “It is shame that people who went to their farm were attacked by gun and machete carrying Fulani herdsmen after destroying their farm land and the farm produce with their cows”.
One of the victims who is receiving treatment in one of the hospitals in Ohafia, who gave his name as Ogbu Kelechi said that he is student of NTI and also a rice farmer which proceeds he uses to sponsor his education was attacked by the herdsmen when he complained about their cowsdestroying his produce.
Kelechi said, “I went to my farm after attending lectures and saw some cows feeding on my already harvested rice and when I complained the herdsmen descended on me with the machetes saying that they will not leave me until I was dead”.
“I pretended to be dead and they came and turned me around to make sure that I [was] dead but then some people who saw what was happening raised the alarm which made the youths to come to find out what was happening but by the time they arrived the herdsmen had fled”.
One of leaders of another community, Ameke Abam, Chief Sunny Agbara said that the issue of herdsmen have ben destroying their farm land and farm produce, “We do not want any conflict with them, but there is a limit to endurance as we have endured enough”.
Agbara said, “Anyone who attacks your farm, attacks your stomach and wants to destroy your life, we want the state Commissioner of Police Leye Oyebade who is the state chairman of Conflict Resolution Committee on herdsmen to do something as was discussed during their inaugural meeting”.
It could be recalled that there was a clash between suspected Fulani herdsmen and the people of Ndi Okereke Abam in Ovukwu autonomous community, Arochukwu local government area of Abia State, which has left about five people badly injured and battling for their lives in an undisclosed hospital.
The injuries they sustained was said to have arisen from bullet and machete wounds inflicted on them by the suspected Fulani herdsmen during the clash between them and the indigenes of the Arrochukwu community.
The President General of the town union, Chief Chukwuma Egbuta Okubi, said that the incident happened last Friday when the herdsmen led their cattle into the farms destroying the crops in the farmland of his people.
Okubi said that the matter was made more painful by the fact that the suspected Fulani herdsmen would uproot the cassava and yam for their cows to eat, including trampling on the entire farm land, thereby making it difficult for our people to harvest their farm produce.
Post a Comment