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From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu and Felix Ikem, Nsukka
It was another Sunday night at Obie Aku farm camp in Opanda village, Nimbo in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State. All the farmers in the settlement were in high spirits that the next day being Monday would be a fruitful day as there was no sign of rain to disrupt their Monday farming activities. 
But they were wrong as herders descended heavily on the farm settlement, unleashing terror and mayhem on the farmers.
Specifically, at exactly 11:00p.m on that fateful Sunday night of July 25, suspected Fulani herdsmen invaded the settlement.
The attack, Sunday Sun gathered, left one dead, and three critically injured with machete cuts.
Mr James Nnadozie, a resident of Adani community, said: “The incident happened few metres away from a military checkpoint, which was dismantled two days before the attack.”
A source from Opanda village who pleaded anonymous told our reporter that the invaders attacked at 11:00p.m, well prepared, with guns, machetes and clubs.
According to the source, “Fulani herdsmen attacked a migrant farm settlement at camp Okpanda in Nimbo community, Uzo-Uwani LGA on the night of July 25, 2021. They came around 11:00p.m, when the farmers are sleeping and forced their door open and immediately attacked them with machetes. Three of them were badly injured with machete cuts all over their body. We didn’t know what was happening until some of them who escaped the attack ran back home in the morning and informed us that the farm settlement was attacked by Fulani herdsmen.
“The members of the vigilante group together with police mobilised and went to the camp and evacuated three injured persons and subsequently rushed them to Bishop Shanahan Hospital in Nsukka LGA where they were given first aid treatment before they were referred to a hospital in the capital city of Enugu.
“Six days before this very latest attack, Fulani herdsmen had killed one farmer at the settlement in the night, as I’m talking with you the man is yet to be buried, his corpse was deposited at a mortuary.
“Three of them are Melly Nwodo and Nnadi Arinze, both of them are from Igbo-Etiti LGA, while Opia Apeh is from Ogurugu in Uzo-Uwani LGA. It will take the grace of God for them to survive given the degree of multiple machete cuts on their bodies. The casualty would have been more if not that some of the farmers took advantage of the darkness in the camp and escaped through the bushes. Some are still missing, but we hope that they will return unhurt.”
Lamenting how incessant herdsmen attacks have affected the people of the area, Mrs Agnes Ezugwu said, “our economic activities which had been flourishing before now came crashing. Output in farm produce has dropped significantly. This is because most of the farmers no longer go to the farm because of fear of herdsmen attack.
“Those who summoned courage to go to the farm have to pay the supreme price with their life or have their crops destroyed. This situation has left many families in abject poverty because the little profit they make from selling their produce to traders who come to the town from different parts of the state to buy from them in order to feed their families has been affected negatively.”
Herdsmen attack is no longer alien to Uzo-Uwani local government area and Nimbo/Opanda in particular.
It would be recalled that on April 25, 2016, a group of herdsmen, unprovoked, invaded the same Nimbo and embarked on a killing spree. Seven villages in Nimbo – Nimbo Ngwoko, Ugwuijoro, Ekwuru, Ebor, Enugu Nimbo, Umuome and Ugwuachara were affected in the attacks with houses, vehicles, property and a church staff quarters razed down. The attack left 11 people dead with more than 100 others injured with gun wounds and machete cuts in all parts of their body.
Five Fulani suspects where subsequently arrested in connection with the attacks, they are; Mohammed Zurai, Ciroma Musa, Sale Adamu, Suleiman Laute and Haruna Laute, they are facing a two-count charge of conspiracy and murder in an Enugu Chief Magistrate’s court.
However, aside invasion of farm settlements in the council area, kidnapping and broad daylight robbery of commuters along Adani, Opanda/Nimbo expressway by suspected Fulani herdsmen have been on the increase in recent times.
A resident of Adani, a neighbouring community, Mr John Ogwudile told Sunday Sun that everyday is another ugly story in the area.
According to Mr Ogwudile, “I am a farmer at Adani. I want to tell you that Opanda/Nimbo highway is the most dangerous road in the Southeast zone. Everyday, there must be an attack on commuters by one group of suspected Fulani herdsmen. Only last week, a popular business entrepreneur in this town popularly known as Maya who was a producer of satchet water called Maya satchet and table water was shot dead by killer herdsmen along Opanda road. Few minutes later, three other commuters were equally shot and seriously wounded by these Fulani herdsmen along the same road.”
Mr Ogwudile appealed to the local, state and Federal Government to come to the rescue of the council area by providing adequate security through out the length and breadth of the area.
At the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku Ozalla Enugu, where Melitus Nwodo and Arinze Nnadi are now receiving treatment, they told Sunday Sun that only the grace of God saved them from the assailants.
Reeling in pains as they lie on their hospital beds with bandages all over their bodies at Wards 2 and 3 at the UNTH, Ituku Ozalla, Enugu, the duo said that they went to the land of the dead and came back, saying that their attackers were heartless and had the agenda or mandate to kill all of them in the camp by the way they operated.
While Melitus and Arinze are still alive to tell their story at the hospital, the third person brought with them to the hospital, Aburuchi Egenti, wasn’t as lucky as he died in the hospital.
To bring succour to the victims of the Sunday night attack, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s representatives visited them at UNTH and announced that government would take care of all their medical bills and deposited some amount of money with the hospital for that purpose. Also their local government chairman, according to them, had visited.
Recalling what happened on that fateful Sunday night, the victims said that they had already gone to sleep when the assailants struck, setting their houses ablaze and laying ambush for them incase they escape from the fire.
Narrating his ordeals to Sunday Sun, 60-year-old Melitus who hails from Umugwuocha Mgboko said: “I was in our camp in Opanda, cooked my night food and ate. I prayed and read my Bible and put my Bible on my bed and slept. In the midnight I was woken up by a kind heat and when I opened my eyes, there was fire all over my door. I said what could bring fire to my door and I quickly carried water and started pouring it on the fire to quench it and shortly I succeeded.
“When I put off the fire, I decided to go out to see what caused the fire outbreak and as I stepped out of the door I had a hit on my head, all my body, they used machete in attacking me and I fell down. When they saw that I have fallen, they ran away, I then began to shout calling for help, but everyone in the camp ran away for their lives because those Fulani people went round the houses in the camp and were ready to kill anyone they see.
“They attacked Arinze, gave him matchet cuts everywhere and one boy from Ogwurogwu who was with Arinze, they also cut him everywhere in his body. We were shouting and no help could come as people in the camp have all ran away. So around 4:00a.m the Fulani people came back, searched everywhere to see if people have come to assist us, but they did not see anybody. That time I lay on the ground in the pool of my blood and they came to me again used the matchets to hit my head terribly, they stood on me, marching me and when they felt I am dead, they left. It was in the morning when the day had broken that people started coming out from the bushes where they had ran into for safety and started shouting and wailing.
One of my neighbours got a motorcycle, but they said it’s not what a motorcycle can do and they went to Opanda and got a vehicle that took us to the hospital, but while they were treating us here, that boy from Ogwurogwu died on Tuesday, because they caught him even in the stomach. I have been praying to God to save me, we did not do any wrong to this people.”
Melitus whose wife is nursing a baby, has her sister in-law taking care of him at the hospital.
He confirmed that the local government chairman had visited him and the governor’s representatives too.
He also said that they were not quarreling with the herders prior to the attack, but noted that the herders have been coming to their farms with their cattle, destroying and eating up their crops.
On his part, Arinze who complained of not being able to hear everything and a kind of loss of memory, said his life is in the hand of God and that he would not die.
Narrating his own story, he said:, “I was with my friend and we were already sleeping when I heard some noise, I got up from the bed, brought out my machete, for me to open the door and they rushed me and I closed the door immediately. They (Fulani herdsmen) pushed the door, but I asked my friend to hold one side and as I put my hand they cut my right hand, my friend ran out and they pursued him, I was alone and when the force was much on the door it caved in and I tried to use the other way out and rain fell. They pursued me and gave me another cut and I fell like a tree and they began to cut me anyhow all my body. When it became unbearable I pretended as if I have fainted, then they circled around me speaking Hausa and after sometimes they left. One of them used his matchet and cut me at my back and left. It was like a kind of strength came upon me and I got up from there and got to the main road where I became weak and fell down and as I left that place they returned there for me, but could not see me. It was there I fell that I was till morning when people came and took us with vehicle.
“As people were crying because of the cuts all over me, I told them to stop crying that my God is alive and strong. I told them that their cries were disturbing me, and they said they will call my aunty and at a time I wasn’t hearing what they were saying, but I was awake. So, that is what I know that happened.”
Though Arinze has not been told of his friend, Aburuchi’s death, he has been asking of him every now and then. He told Sunday Sun: “I pity my friend who broke spinal cord, I feel so sorry for him because he came to assist me, he went to weed his cocoyam and he asked me to help him and I did and he came likewise to assist me before this thing happened.”
Giving further details on the incident, Melitus’ sister-in-law (elder sister of his wife), Mrs. Nkiruka Ezike who is taking care of him in the hospital said: “In the morning of that day when people from Aku came to the scene, the first person to meet Melitus was Mr. Chilekwu Ugwu who tried to help him out, but when they saw that they were three that were badly attacked, they went and brought a bus driven, Mr. Ebere Ezinwa. Ebere now conveyed them from Opanda, they reported at Nimbo Police station, a policeman followed to Bishop Shanahan Hospital Nsukka. I met them at the Shanahan hospital and after they gave them some first aid, the hospital recommended that they should be transferred to Orthopedic hospital, Enugu. When they got there, the orthopedic people said it affected their head, they cannot handle the head issue that they should go straight to UNTH, Ituku Ozalla and that was how we came here.”
Asked if three of them are at UNTH now? She said: “Three of them were brought here at UNTH, but one of them died on Tuesday. They took him for scan and on their way coming back from the scan, the boy gave up, Mr. Aburuchi Egenti from Ogwurogwu, Uzo Uwani.”
On assistance from the government, Mrs. Ezike said: “The chairman of Uzo-Uwani local government sent somebody to Shanahan and he deposited N100,000 and when they brought them here in UNTH, the chairman also visited on Tuesday in the morning. he gave each of them N100, 000 and left, then the chairman of Igbo Etiti Local Government also to care of their scan, he cleared the bill for the scan because they went outside the hospital to do it. On the same Tuesday, the state government sent their delegates, they came and liaised with hospital authorities that they would take care of all the bills, which they said they deposited N500,000.
“But the problem we are having is that even as they said they should waive the bill for us, if you go to some units they will tell you they are not aware of it. This morning, I went to the eye clinic, they said they don’t know about that, I should either pay them or go to the revenue, which I later paid them. I went for test again, they said I should go to Revenue, Revenue signed, I came back they directed me to another place, I went their, they said the person that was supposed to sign was not there and the doctor needed the result. Some drugs, they will tell you it is not there, this morning I bought a drug of N3,300 and I have the receipts, I bought it outside the hospital. Dressing pad which we supposed to get from the hospital, they said they don’t know anything about the waiver that we must pay, which we paid. So, government has promised to take care of these people and has gone ahead to make some deposit, the hospital should ensure that the people enjoy that governor or state government’s benevolence.”
Mrs. Ezike who is a priest’s wife, however, expressed gratitude to God for the mercy showed the victims and the hospital for their care, noting that her in-law was recovering as he could now recognize people and remember what happened and how it happened.
Also reacting on the attack, the Senator representing Enugu North Senatorial District in the Red Chambers of the National Assembly, Chukwuka Utazi, decried the persistent and routine killings of natives, security agents and migrant farmers in Uzo-Uwani LGA lately, and consequently turning the area into a killing field.
The senator who appreciated the efforts made by Governor Ugwuanyi in tackling security in the area and the state as a whole, called on the Local Council Chairman of Uzo-Uwani, the Neighbourhood Watch, the Forest Guards, the traditional rulers and Presidents General of the various town unions in the area to also rise to the occasion in defence of the Local Government Area and its various communities, from the unrelenting and marauding AK 47 wielding herdsmen in all the nooks and crannies of the area, bearing in mind that “eternal vigilance is the price we all must pay for the security of lives and property.”
Senator Utazi used the opportunity of the latest herdsmen attack on the Opanda-Nimbo migrant farmers to call on the Enugu State House of Assembly to, as a matter of urgency, pass the Southern Governors Forum’s proposed anti-open grazing bill into law in Enugu State, to forestall any future herders-farmers clashes in the state, noting that “a bleak harvest awaits the public next year as farmers couldn’t farm this year as fear of herders’ attack pervades the whole farming communities in Uzo-Uwani LGA and beyond.”
When contacted, Mr Daniel Ndukwe, the Police Public Relation Officer, Enugu Command, confirmed the incident.
He said that “the area is calm, while the state Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Ndatsu Aliyu, has ordered the conduct of thorough investigation to unravel the circumstances surrounding the incident and bring the perpetrators to book,”
He urged residents of the area to remain calm and assist the police with useful information.
However, though normalcy seems to have returned to the community, Sunday Sun gathered that many settlers are still afraid of returning to their houses for fear of further attacks by the killer herdsmen.
