From Jude Chinedu, Enugu
Aku community in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State, has denied any involvement in an early morning attack on Ikolo community on Monday.
The attack which led to the burning of 17 houses and destruction of property worth millions of naira, was said to have been carried out by youths from Aku community as part of an ongoing boundary dispute.
However, at a press conference in Enugu Tuesday evening, leaders of Aku community vehemently denied perpetrating the carnage. Rather, they alleged that Ikolo people were the aggressors in the land tussle.
Chairman of Aku General Assembly, Chief Innocent Diyoke, who addressed the conference, accused their Ikolo neighbours of misleading the public with their outcry over the attack, adding that the land issue between the two communities dates back to 1963.
He said that the Ikolo people who migrated from Ikolo-Affa in the present Udi Local Government Area of the state have continued to drag parcels of land belonging to Lelegu Aku community, beyond where they were originally given to settle.
He said that this had led to several clashes between the two communities including a recent attack on a prominent Aku politician who had been singled out as the sponsor of the attack against Ikolo people, adding that some prominent persons in Ikolo were sponsoring falsehood against his people.
Aku community spokesman said: “On November 1, 2023, Ikolo men and their hired mercenaries numbering about 20 launched an attack on Aku people during which they demolished many buildings erected many years ago on our land.
“Within the same period they also launched an attack on Hon. Ogbons Idike’s poultry farm where they burnt a very high power generator, vandalized the poultry farm and stole many animals in the poultry farm with an estimated loss of about N28 million.
“More importantly, many of our people who were innocently passing along the road were macheted and butchered like wild animals. Fortunately, one of the building demolition victims’, Nnabuike Okpeta alerted the Ogbede Police Division who arrested about 5 out of the 20 mercenaries hired by Ikolo people to attack Aku people.
“Let me use this opportunity to state categorically that the allegation that Aku people through Ogbons Idike masterminded the attack on Ikolo people is in its entirety, false.
“Aku people have no hand in the alleged attack against Ikolo people. Let me state emphatically that through all the years Ikolo people were unleashing terror on the Aku community, our people have never or once engaged in any reprisal attack against the Ikolo community because of our civil and law abiding nature.”
Also, youth President of Aku General Assembly, Joel Akerekwe, said that after conducting a private investigation into what led to the attack, he found out that the same mercenaries that Ikolo people had hired to demolish buildings in Aku came back to hurt them.
He alleged that after they were arrested by the Police and abandoned by Ikolo people, they got angry, so after they were released, they decided to attack Ikolo for abandoning them in detention.