My Amasiri Community, originally, is bounded by Akaeze in Ivo L.G.A., Okposi in Ohozara L.G.A., Amangwu; Akpoha, Ibii & Ehugbo all in Afikpo L.G.A. as well as Nkporo in Ohafia L.G.A. of Abia State.
However, now living in the boundary between my community and Akaeze as well as the one between us and Nkporo are the people of Oso in Ebonyi. I do not wish to delve into the history concerning how they started living in that area for decades now.
The main thing is that my community has been in a contested dispute over our land with the Oso Community. The dispute, undoubtedly, resulted in the killings and abduction of innocent persons. For instance, after serving his country without hurt for more than thirty years, a retired Nigerian Army officer from my town was kid napped with his wife by Oso and till date, no one has seen or heard from them since last year.
Again, not less than five men from my community, who went to help students clear the bush in their school were ki11ed and their remains seized by the Oso. That was also last year and these are just few of this sad incidents that I can list here . We made several reports to the governor of our and many government officials and representatives, but all fell on deaf ears.
Instead of taking the law in our hands, we instituted a suit against Oso and while it was on, the governor came and stated that he would settle the issues amicably if we withdrew the court case. For Peace’s sake, we withdrew same. Yet, nothing was still done by the governor of our State.
Meanwhile, it is worthy of note that Oso has also been in several war outings with Akaeze and Nkporo to the extent that they ki11 and abduct persons from those towns the same way they do to Amasiri.
Towards the end of last month, it was reported that unknown gunmen attacked a couple of Oso persons, ki11ed about 4 of them and left with their heads. And, immediately that happened, our governor, who had been silent about the problem and who was on a short holiday somewhere, flew back to Ebonyi and went straight to the place of the incidence.
There, without carrying out any investigation, no matter how minute, the governor concluded that the sad incident was carried out by my town. He mandated my town to provide the heads that were severed from the bodies of the victims or face his wrath, as according to him, we didn’t vote for him in the last election.
The governor quickly declared 20 hours daily curfew upon my community, closed all churches, markets, public and private schools and mobilized the Nigerian Army, DSS and others into my community and ever since, the activities of these officers, acting on the orders of governor, have reduced my community to a near-ghost town, because they shoot at sight anyone they see.
Not only that, he delisted my community from the list of communities in Ebonyi and asked us to choose another State where we want to belong.
By a voice WhatsApp message I listened to this morning, our L.G.A. chairman said that the governor is angry that my people are posting a lot about the development and that he warned that if we do not stop posting on social medias that he would intensify our sufferings soon. Then I ask, why should we not post to call on the world to come to our aid ? Why must we keep silent when we’re being ki11ed? Do you beat a child and expect him not to cry? What have our innocent children done to deserve to be out of school?
Did we choose to be in Ebonyi State? Weren’t I born as an Abian before I was made to become an Ebonyian?
The shocking thing now is that while the governor closed down every public activity in my community, he allowed the quarry companies in Amasiri to continue their businesses. There is no community in Ebonyi State that generates the amount of revenue my community generates for the State government. I ask again, why didn’t he close down these companies.
I’m forced to believe that the governor of Ebonyi, who mother’s lineage came from Oso/Edda, is being obviously biased in this issue by punishing my people for an offence which hasn’t been proved to have been committed by us.