By Ogenyi Izunna Mark
Eha-Amufu, one of the urban centres in old Eastern Nigeria, has a rich history. Located many kilometres away from the capital city, its railway station and position as the gateway to Northern Nigeria made the town a hub of activities. Many people from different parts of the old Eastern Region lived and operated businesses in Eha-Amufu. The presence of a College of Education, established by the Federal Government, accelerated the urbanization of the area. However, with the decline of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, especially the Eastern axis, business activities and the large influx of people reduced.
Eha-Amufu, an agrarian area blessed with large, fertile expanses of land capable of producing food for six million people, is now a shadow of its former self due to the selfish interests of some political stakeholders. An outsider might attribute the current crisis to the balkanization of the town into several autonomous communities, but the reality is more complex. Unfortunately, the activities of some con artists masquerading as opinion moulders, politicians, and church leaders have turned the once peaceful town into a ghost of its former self.
It is not as if the Fulani herdsmen had not been moving around the border area between Eha-Amufu and Benue State without any skirmishes until some persons from Eha-Amufu started sinister meetings with the herdsmen, aimed at enriching themselves through cow gifts and other items. These individuals emboldened the herdsmen, who began acting as co-owners of the farm settlements. Furthermore, the colonisation of the communal timber forest by these con artists for their selfish aggrandizement instigated social and political squabbles that balkanized Eha-Amufu into camps.
Today, there are separate town unions, women’s groups, and even church groups. The last herders/farmers crisis, which took a more volatile dimension in 2022, is an outcrop of the build-up of crisis that started in Eha-Ohuala communities about 15 years ago.
The Executive Governor of Enugu State has been implementing strategies to ensure peace and security in Eha-Amufu, but opposition elements who lost in the last general election are bent on thwarting the governor’s efforts.
Similarly, these opposition elements in Eha-Amufu, angry with the current council chairman of Isi-Uzo Local Government Area for supporting the current governor instead of the Labour party candidate, are determined to make the council chairman’s administration ungovernable. The recent protest in Eha-Amufu and Ikem was part of the grand plan to unleash terror in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area. Surprisingly, the protesters demanded that security personnel (army and police) vacate Eha-Amufu land, accusing the government and security agencies of being the instigators of killings in Eha-Amufu to grab their land.
These accusations and disgruntled attitudes are fuelled by opposition elements who have secretly set up their own local security outfit to facilitate their illegal timber business and colonisation of the area. It is not surprising to hear some women protesters shouting that the road being constructed by the current administration in Enugu State at Eha-Amufu is a ploy to take over their land and that the People’s Democratic Party should not campaign in Eha-Amufu anymore.
What is also astonishing is that despite the current chairman of Isi-Uzo Local Government Area executing major projects in Eha-Amufu, the opposition is determined to make the current government in Isi-Uzo ungovernable. It is imperative for security agencies to identify and apprehend those instigating crisis in Eha-Amufu and disrupting governance in Isi-Uzo and Enugu State.