Less than twenty hours to the end of the year 2011, gunmen suspected to be Ezza militants, invaded Ezillo in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi state, killing over 66 people; wounding several others, and sending a chilling signal of war without end between the Ezza-Ezillo communities, writes? MIKE UBANI.
Ten-year-old Amarachi Ali, a native of Abonyi Ezillo, in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi state, was looking forward to putting on? the new costume and a pair of shoes her parents bought? for her to celebrate the New Year – 2012.? A pupil of Ezillo Central School, she had informed some of her classmates that she would celebrate the New Year in a classy way. Beyond appearing fashionable, her mother Onyema, had assured her that members of the family would enjoy a meal of chicken and rice, just as they did during the last Christmas day.? But unknown to Amarachi, her mother and the rest of the family members, great misfortune lay ahead of them.
It was about 6 a.m. December 31 the last day of the year 2011.? The weather was windy – and there was strong indication that it was going to rain that early morning, just like it did in some states of the southeast zone.? Ma Onyema opened the door to bring in some clothes she had spread outside the previous day. Before she could get to where she hung the clothes, she was surrounded by some youths armed with guns, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons.? “We are youths from Ezza, and we have come to kill Ezillo youths” the unwanted Ezza youths shouted in unison.? As she made to run for her dear life, one of the gunmen shot at her – the bullet scrapping her left arm.
When little Amarachi heard the commotion, she and other members of the family, ran outside.? She was not oblivious of the constant invasion of the community by Ezza militants, and therefore, she knew instantly that once again, the enemy was at the door.?? “When I tried to run, one of the gunmen shot me on the right foot, and I fell down”, Amarachi told LEADERSHIP WEEKEND as she writhed in pains on her hospital bed at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, FETA, the Ebonyi state capital.
Eight-year-old Ede Onyekachi, an indigene of Amaleze-Ezillo, was subjected to the same treatment as Amarachi.? When he heard sporadic gun shots within his compound, he ran out of the room – and kept running until one of the gunmen lurking behind a provision store in the area grabbed him – hit his head with a gleaming cutlass, and subsequently shot him on the left leg.? When LEADERSHIP WEEKEND visited FETA, the doctors had removed the bullet lodged in his left leg.
Nwanneka Ebenyi, a nursing mother went outside that early morning to ease herself – leaving her six-months-old baby inside the room.? And before she could finish answering the call of nature, she was grabbed by a gun-wielding youth who asked her to say her last prayers.
According to Nwanneka, an indigene of Ankpa? Ezillo, the trigger-happy youth was about? to shoot her, when another gun-wielding Ezza youth pleaded with his colleague to spare her life, even then the blood-thirsty gunman macheted her on the head and neck.? “I am happy to see my daughter alive”, said her mother Regina Odo, who sat close to her hospital bed at FETA.? Asked of the whereabouts of her six-months-old baby, and her daughter’s other children, Regina said a good samaritan who noticed that Nwanneka was in danger, ran inside the house and carried the baby and? her other? three children? into safety.
It was a morning of blood-letting., cries for help which never came.? If Amarachi, Ede and Nwanneka are alive today to relay their ordeal, the same cannot be said of several other indigenes of Ezillo.
It was gathered that over 66 persons and dozens of domestic animals were killed by the marauding Ezza militants.? Not a few houses were equally? razed to the ground.??
The victims comprising?? children between the ages of three to 10 years, men and women, and the elderly people, had different parts of their bodies severed, while others had mortal gunshot wounds.
Dr. Paul Ezeonu, Chief Medical Director, FETA, told LEADERSHIP SATURDAY, in an interview that the victims of the tragic event in Ezillo, who are on admission in the hospital, are responding to treatment.? He thanked the state governor, Martin Elechi, for paying the hospital bills of the victims upfront, as well as the minister of health. Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, for promptly making available drugs and other necessary materials for the treatment of the victims.? He abhorred the spilling of blood, and advised the warring parties to come around a conference table to settle their differences.
The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, South-East Zone, has also brought succcour to the survivors of the mayhem in Ezillo.? Dr. Onimode A. Bamidele, the agency’s zonal coordinator, told LEADERSHIP SATURDAY, in a telephone interview that the organization had provided foodstuffs including bags of garri and rice’; detergents and insecticide treated mosquito nets to those displaced by the killings and destruction of houses in Ezillo.
This is not the first time that the Ezzas will be carrying war to the doorsteps of Ezillo people.? A similar incident took place in 2008 and 2010.? As was the case in 2011, several children, men and women from Ezillo stock, were killed by Ezza militants.
According to Cable News Network, CNN. over 1000 people, majority of them from Ezillo community have been killed since the war between the two communities started in 2008.
Though the confrontation between Ezza and Ezillo people who fall within the same Ebonyi Central Senatorial Zone,is traceable to a land dispute, the sustenance of the war is said to be politically motivated.? In fact, in 2010, a group known as Concerned Democrats in Ebonyi had? accused some notable politicians from Ezza ethnic group of arming Ezza youths to destabilize the government of Governor Elechi, so that? one of their own would rout the governor during the April 2011 governorship election in the state.
“Prior to the outbreak of hostilities between the two communities in 2008, they had co-existed peacefully, and inter-married…so the question is why? does so much bad blood exist between these two communities”?, queried Comrade John Nwambam.? He went ahead to provide what seemed to be the answer.
He said:? “The truth is that there is somebody somewhere, beating the drums of war,… and from our investigation, this? person is bent on making the state ungovernable for the pedestrian reason that he believes that he, and not Governor Elechi, should be the sitting governor”.
But Governor Elechi regards the activities of his so-called detractors as a storm in a tea cup.
During his visit to FETA during the week, to console the victims of the Ezillo crisis, the governor said the crisis would not stop him from pursuing his people-oriented programmes, adding that the frequent war between Ezza and Ezillo communities would not stop investors from coming to the state.? He was confident that the victims would survive, but doubted the possibility of the two warring communities living together as brothers and sisters again.
“I doubt that the people can again live together with the type of destruction that leaves permanent bad feelings.? When you talk of reconciliation, which we started in 2008, things were not so bad, as we see them today, and so only God can heal the wounds and not human beings”, said the governor.
It was gathered that the remote cause of the present blood-letting is not unconnected with a land dispute that ensued in l958 between Ezillo people and the people of Okposhi Nkwolu, Ngbo, in Ohaukwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi state.
According to a reliable source, the Ezillos requested the Ezzas to send them one hundred and twenty five (l25) men from Ezza ancestral home in Onueke, then in Ezikwo division (now in Ezza North and South Local Government Areas of the present day Ebonyi state), to assist them (Ezillos) secure the disputed parcels? of land known as Egu Echara, Egu Okwuru, Egu -Uzo Oge and Abogodo, from their? neighbouring Ngbo community.
Specifically, the agreement between the Ezillos and the Ezzas, was that if the situation degenerated into war, and the Ezzas helped the Ezillos to conquer the Ngbos, the disputed parcels of land would be parceled out between the Ezillos and Ezzas as compensation for their (Ezzas) assistance to defeat the Ngbos in the battle field.
However, no war ensued over the disputed parcels of land.? But? the then colonial government, unilaterally demarcated the Egu-Achara land between the Ezillos and the Okposhi Nkwolu Ngbo, and awarded the whole of Egu-uzo-oge, Egu-okwuru and Abogodo to the Okposhi Nkwolu, Ngbo.
The twenty-two (22) Ezza men who had so far arrived and settled on the side of Egu-Achara land claimed by the Ezillo people, characteristically refused to go back to their ancestral homes at Onueke, despite the fact that the misunderstanding between the Ezillos and the Okposhi Nkwolu, Ngbo people had been resolved by the then colonial administration in the area.
Thereafter, the 22 Ezza men proceeded to occupy the portion of land that the colonial government awarded to the Ezillos in course of the settlement of the dispute. The Ezzas allegedly? forcefully trespassed on the following parcels of land:?? Mgbago Ali-akpor, Egu Uba, Afor Oducha, Egu Otahule, Egu Ugwu, Ndiagu Ugwu, Ugbonna, Egbirigba, Odeligbo, Okpochiri and Ishimkpuma Ugbonna, Ndiagu-ugwu, Okpochiri, Mgbago, which were never part of the areas in dispute between the Okposi Nkwolu, Ngbo people and the Ezillos.
The part of Egu-Echara land that was given to the Ezillo people by the colonial government, was equally taken over by the Ezzas.? The implication is that the Ezillos lost all the four parcels of land in dispute between them and the Okposi Nkwolu Ngbo people, and which formed the basis of inviting the Ezzas in the first place.
The Ezza people are generally known to be peripatetic.? One Abakaliki resident who spoke on condition of anonymity said that:? If you graciously give them a piece of land, they would forcefully grab another portion of land before you could say Jack Robison.
They usually come as farmers, and before you know it, they would bring their wives, children and other relatives.
“For instance, the Ezzas who arrived Idodo in Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu state, in the 60’s, have almost taken over the land belonging to their host community.? They built schools, health centres, and fillings stations, and named those facilities after the founding father of Ezza ‘nation” But for the fact that Amagunze people in Nkanu East Local Government Area, are warriors just like the Ezzas, the later would have seized Amagunze by force, when they arrived there in the mid 60”s”.
In l959, the Ezillos challenged the incursion on their land by the Ezzas before a Native Court in Nkalagu.
And on December l4, l959, the court ruled that the Ezza people, who then occupied other areas belonging to the Ezillos other than Egu-Echara, should vacate such places.?
The court? also held? that the Ezza people should retire to join their other twenty-two kinsmen already occupying part of Egu-Achara land.
The court further ordered that those Ezza people who felt they could not be accommodated at the said Egu-Achara with their kinsmen should “within the period of three months retire back to Ezza land – their ancestral home in Onueke.? The court finally ordered that all farming, building of structures and other activities in the areas belonging to the Ezillos, and different from Egu-Echara should forthwith stop”.
Nevertheless, the Ezzas appealed against the judgment before Mr. P. O. Gunning, then district officer in-charge of Abakaliki district.? Gunning affirmed the ruling of the Native Court, and further ordered the Ezzas not to settle beyond a particular area which he as the district officer in charge of the entire Abakaliki district,had marked out with two trees in Egu-Echara land.? He said that with proper planning, many Ezzas who wanted to settle at Egu-Echara land could be accommodated in the said land.
Nevertheless, the Ezzas ignored both the orders of the court and that of the district officer – relying as it were, on their numerical strength and military prowess.?
Apparently appalled by the manifest obduracy of the Ezzas, Mr. J. C. M. Ifediora, then divisional officer in charge of Ishielu division, summoned a peace meeting between the Ezillos and Ezzas on April l7, l972.? The Ezzas reportedly turned down suggestions made by the divisional officer for a peaceful settlement of the dispute.
But undeterred, the divisional officer summoned another meeting on December 30, l972, during which he reminded the Ezzas on the need to abide by the judgment of the Native court.? The Ezzas were reportedly adamant.? Instead, they allegedly proceeded to desecrate the culture and traditions of their host community – the Ezillos.
LEADERSHIP SATURDAY? gathered that the? immediate cause of the present killings? of? Ezillo people by the Ezzas? could be traced to a dispute between the two communities? over ownership of a piece of land? at Eke Isimkpuma market, where Sunday Idenyi, an indigene of Ezillo erected a telephone booth.
According to a reliable source, the piece of land was given to Sunday by his late uncle, Igiri Onwe.? But some Ezza men, however, claimed ownership of the piece of land, and proceeded to pull down the telephone booth. A group of Ezza youth allegedly attacked Sunday for protesting over the destruction of his telephone booth.? They allegedly proceeded to burn houses and property belonging to Ezillo people.
The latest killing of Ezillo people and Governor Elechi’s assertion that the two communities can no longer live together, portend great danger to the lives and property of Ezillo people, and? many Nigerians who ply the Enugu –Abakaliki