ABAKALIKI-THE people of Umuobor, Akaeze in Ivo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, have protested killings, maiming and destruction of their people in the land tussle between them and their Ogwor neighbors, Ishiagu in the same local government.
The Umuobor people took to a protest over the killings and destructions over the land dispute.
The protesting women carried placards with various inscriptions and marched round the area and its environs for hours.
The protesters, made up of widows, youths and women, alleged that they have lost over 100 persons in the land tussle, describing it as unacceptable.
One of the protesters, a pregnant woman, Felicia Ajali said that her husband and two children were killed on the land last month when she sent them to go and harvest food for the family.
” My husband and children were my strength, and they have been killed. This land dispute has affected me a lot, I am the worst hit.
“I sent my husband and my two children to go and harvest cassava for me last month and they were killed. Look at my condition as a pregnant woman, how can I survive this condition?
“I had three children and they killed two of them. I now have only one child. Ogwor people and government should obey the supreme court judgment and leave our land for us”, she said
The two neighbours have been at war for decades over a vast fertile land known as Elueke with many lives lost and properties worth billions of naira destroyed.
In 1991, the Supreme Court delivered a judgement in favour of Umuobor community over the land dispute.
Since last year, the land dispute has taken a more dangerous dimension with more killings and destructions, forcing Governor Francis Nwifuru to declare the land a buffer zone.
The Governor also set up a committee to find lasting solutions to the dispute.
Vanguard gathered that last month, four people were killed on the disputed land while harvesting crops.
Three of those killed were from Umuobor while the fourth person, a woman, came from Okue community in the Local Government.
The woman was harvesting cassava when she was killed.
One of the leaders of the community, Chief Sylvanus Ibeh explained that the Ogwor people dragged them to court and Umuobor won the matter from the high court to the supreme court and wondered why the are Ogwor people are dragging the land with them.
He lamented that Umuobor community has lost many lives and properties, including schools, churches, houses and other valuable properties, to the crisis.
