Emeka
Ibemere
The rustic village of Ogwashi-ukwu, Delta
State South-South Nigeria, have fallen apart. To be modest, things are no
longer at ease; only that the arrows of gods haven’t started disturbing.
But for now, there is no peace. Just last
week, military forces took over the soul of the community, terrorizing the
residents of the town in a most brazen soldering.
Witnesses said about four people have been
killed while several others are injured. According to them, many of the
residents are on the run to avoid the wrath of the soldiers who have occupied
the community while scores of others are in different hospitals in Asaba Delta
and Onitsha in Anambra States.
What happened?
Soldiers said to be under the beck and call
of Professor Okonjo, the father of the Minister for Finance, Mrs Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala and the Obi of Ogwashi-Ukwu, allegedly stormed the community and
started shooting sporadically and by the time the smoking guns cooled down, no
less than four people were allegedly killed including a four year old boy.
What is the bone of contention? - Traditional
stool of Ogwashi-Ukwu, the Obiship; which has been in contention in the last 10
years. The incident of last week was caused by the date of the new yam festival.
The community has refused to celebrate the new yam festival with the Obi but
allegedly preferred to celebrate the new yam festival with another group who
are opposing the coronation of the Obi, Professor Okonjo, the father of the
Minister for Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on the grounds that he was not
the heir apparent to the throne.
Trouble was said to have started when the Obi
fixed the new yam festival on Friday, September 28 as against the October 1st
scheduled by those opposing his alleged throne.
Apparently sensing danger, the Obi allegedly
invited the military to the town after his entreaties to the market women to
vacate the market square, the venue for the new yam ceremony failed.
And not giving any chance for eventuality,
for the opposing group to celebrate the new yam festival on October 1st, he
purportedly employed the soldiers for security which later turned sour.
In a press conference in Lagos on Monday,
September 30, Messers, Andrew Iidonewi, Azuka Ugbah, Sunday Chukwuma and Nwajei
Chuks Nwajei from Agidiahe quarters in Ogwashi –Ukwu family released the names
of those allegedly killed in the attack by the military. According to them,
Kingsley Ude, Ebeolum Nzediuno, and Okorie Nwachukwu were allegedly killed by
the rampaging soldiers. The Agidiahe quarters who spoke through their leader,
HH Agumba Nwajei Chuks Nwajei, Agumba and Akaji obi of Ogwashi-Ukwu, said it’s
only the gods of the land that decides the date of the new yam festival. He claimed
that the heir apparent to the Obiship is Abogidi, Dr Felix Nzediuno, and the
authentic Obi of Ogwashi Ukwu. He said the soldiers allegedly killed the son of
the late Obi Nzediuno.
“We are calling this Press Conference because
of the development in Ogwashi ukwu recently. On Friday, the father of Okonjo
Iweala, Am sure with support of her daughter sent in truck loads of military
police to Ogwashi-ukwu and they started massacring our people. I said massacre,
we are not talking about the police, and we are now talking about the Army.
then on Friday September 28, I was here and my people were calling me from
every corner of the country that there was crisis in Ogwashi Uku, I asked them
what was happening and they told me that the Nigerian army has taking control
of Ogwashi-Ukwu, on the instructions of Professor Okonjo, and that they have
been shooting and a lot of people were killed to the extent that they went to
the palace and started shooting”, he complained.
“We have almost four people dead and others are
now in the hospital. The person that was killed was the four year old boy, then
a woman was also shot and the son of the late obi, they wanted to assassinate
him and as we are talking he is battling his life at a hospital Asaba”. According to Nwajei, who holds the traditional
spiritual rank in the parallel cabinet in the Felix palace in the same Ogwashi
Uku, trouble started when the community allegedly disobeyed Obi Okonjo in
closing market for his new yam festival.
“Our people said no, you don’t have the right
to ask us not to go to the market on the market day because he doesn’t have the
traditional right to stop them from going to the market on the Afor market day.
He now show them another place to go and sell their wares, the people resisted
and knowing that he cannot find his way, he now brought in the army because
people disobeyed him by going to the market and the soldiers started killing
people. They ought to be arrested and taking to court. You don’t have to kill
them; that was what caused the killing”, Nwajei stated.
“Am not a member of his cabinet. He has one.
We have two cabinets in Ogwashi Uku now; we have a parallel obi, now. Felix is
the authentic obi of Ogwashi Uku. Who chalked him? He queried.
Chalking an Obi is a traditional way of coronation
of an Obi in Ogwashi-Uku tradition. But Nwajei said that such ceremony never
took place and therefore, nobody or the entire king- makers of Agidiahe
quarters chalked Professor Chukwuka Okonjo, the father of the coordinating
Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
Nwajei disclosed to journalists that the
shrine of the Agidiahe quarters’ palace was desecrated by the soldiers when they
invaded the palace in search of him for opposing the alleged ‘self acclaimed
Obi’.
According to him, it has become the trade
mark of the said Obi to intimidate the people of Ogwasi-Uku to cow them into
submission.
“So, it has become the custom of this man, to
use federal might to intimidate our people and when these things are happening,
may be because of fear of our people, nobody seems to be talking. But when it
comes to an extent, that the army is now being called, there is no Boko Haram
in Ogwashi Uku; it gives us course for concern to alert the public.
Nwajei concede that there has been Obiship
tussle in Ogwashi Uku for the past 10 years and that they have been in court
with Okonjo in the past 10 years. According to him, it was the court that gave
him the crown of Obi and not the people of Ogwashi Uku.
I want
to be quoted; I will be responsible to the press any paper that is publishing
it. He went to Warri last year and brought in the Airforce, army and anti-everything
and they invaded my spiritual shrine-(ogwa). Luckily, I wasn’t around and the
instruction was to kill me and this army chaps from Warri, apparently they were
the same people they were using because I don’t see the reason why army should
be invited in the case”, He stated.
“If anybody has committed an offence, you
don’t have to call the army; you have to call the police because the army is
meant to protect our territorial integrity. They were not meant to kill
civilians. The statutory duty of the military has been spelt out in the
constitution. They went to Warri, and hired over 40 soldiers for me but I
wasn’t around. They met my wife and mother. I took them to court and they want
us to settle out of the court and I have to agree. But what we are saying, is
how about the people that were killed on the last Friday? Everybody should not
be like Agumba. These are poor people, who were just mould down like that; like
mosquitoes because Professor Okonjo is using her daughter the current Finance Minister
to intimidate Ogwashi-ukwu citizens”.
Nwajei stated that he has have never seen a
place that Obi uses police, army, including customs men to protect himself. He
disclosed that each time Okonjo is going out that he goes, with retinue of
customs operatives, mobile policemen, and army.
“We want to know, if the Sardauna of Sokoto
uses this kind of retinue of security. Is
it not our tax payers’ money that Ngozi Iweala is using to back his father? A puppet king. If a man is popular with his
people, do you have to use over 30 people guarding you? You want to do any ceremony;
there must be fracas that amounts to killing. I want to emphasis, and I want to
be challenged that the letter-headed paper of the assumed obi of Ogwashi Uku
which we do not recognise, if you go to
all the security organisations in Asaba, the letter headed paper of the assumed
obi of Ogwashi-ukwu is bigger than all the correspondents any other ruler has
written since independence. And what are these correspondences, petitions
against the people who are telling him that what he is doing is wrong”. Speaking
further, he said.
“This man has been committing sacrilege in
Ogwashi Uku kingdom. The tradition of the people is that obi cannot enter bush,
a chief cannot even enter a bush, but obi of Ogwashi ukwu enters bush and market.
Imagine where obi entered market to tell yam sellers that he doesn’t want them
to be putting their yam on the floor to sell. Ogwashi ukwu has never had light
in the last years where the minister came from. For five years, we have never
seen PHCN; because his father can afford to buy litters of diesel. The only
road tarred in Ogwashi Uku is the one leading to Okonjo Iweala fathers’ house.
I challenge the press to go to Ogwashi ukwu and prove me wrong”.
Nwajei regretted the deplorable situation of
Ogwashi-Uku kingdom and stated that the Obi and her daughter failed the people
they claimed they are ruling.
“We have never had tap water in the past six
years. No road, which is a town that has the serving minister for finance and
economic planning, comes from. What they are doing is selling the matrimony of
Ogwashi-ukwu. They have sold every land in Ogwashi ukwu. This man just came
into the throne as a puppet king, he is not recognised, one major thing they
have done with the people he appointed as chiefs was to mortgage Ogwashi ukwu
land. If you go there now, is worse than Lagos, where one chief will sell one
land to 10 people”, he disclosed.
“We are calling this press conference to
alert the people about the painful plight of our people who are now suffering
because of the antics of the self acclaimed obi. Who gave him the retinue of
over 40 police, army and customs to protect an obi? And an obi who wants to
kill his people is not a leader. An obi who writes petitions against his
subject is not an obi. A father cannot be killing his children and this man is
fond of making false allegations against his subjects. Trying to rule by intimidation
and people like us are saying no. Am not afraid to die. Some of us are not
afraid to die. I served him writhe of sermon; he has taking over the land, my
ceremony is coming up this month and he is planning of using the police to
disrupt it. He has no hand in spiritual cleansing which I was to do in few
weeks now”.
But Nwajei said nothing would stop him from
observing the rites of spiritual cleansing which is his own spiritual
obligation leading to the proper new yam festival.
“Police has called me to say that they have
orders from above that this year’s spiritual cleansing cannot hold. We are
appealing to you people to let the world know that our people are dying
systematically and being set up by Okonjo, the puppet obi of Ogwashi Uku. The
Ogwashi Uku people do not want him. We are the king- makers, we never made him
obi. It was the courts that enthrone him. We have been fighting him since. We
have a way of chosen our obi”.
According to Nwajei anybody that his father
was never an Obi cannot be an Obi.
“If your father is not an obi, you can never
be an obi. His father was never an obi. So he now came up and because he has a
federal might, he was given a staff office by 4am. by the governor Uduaghan. It
means that the federal might have been working on his side. If you are popular
with your people, you have to rule by the mandate of your people and not the
court. His own family wasn’t supposed to be the obi, though he came from the
family that holds the Obiship but his own is different from the family that was
supposed to produce the obi. Because of their money and connections, they
hijacked it and we have been in court in the past 10 years”, he said.
“We are supposed to start our new yam
festival and because he now chose his own date but the tradition of Ogwashi-Uku
was that everything was supposed to be done by the oracle and he choose his own
date to be last Friday and on Friday, because he doesn’t know the custom, the
market square is in our compound, he now asked people not to go to market last
Afor day”.
It will be recalled that Appeal Court sitting
in Benin City on the legal tussle over the Obiship of Ogwashi Uku kingdom
headquarters of Aniocha, South Local Government Area of Delta State, declared
the Umu obi Obahai royal family as the only family qualified to produce obi of
Ogwashi Uku.
The court ruling said Professor Chukwuka
Okonjo is the authentic Obi of Ogwashi Uku after the High Court in Delta State
removing from the throne, Obi Felix Ogochukwuka 11 of Deiyi royal family in
2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment