– Sleep In Churches
– As Information Commissioner Maintains, Imo, Safe
While innocent people are being gruesomely killed in their numbers in Imo State, the Commissioner for Information, Declan Emelumba is said was on air before the festive period persuading Imo people at home and in the Diaspora to come home for the Christmas and New Year celebrations because, according to him “the state is now a safe haven for investors.”
The irony, according to some of his kinsmen who are not happy with his posturing is that Emelumba himself has not visited his community in the past three years.
Some of them who spoke to our reporter wondered why Emelumba, as the Commissioner for Information believes that misinforming Imo people is the best way for him to perform his duties instead of urging his principal, the Governor, to rise up to the challenge posed by hoodlums, kidnappers and terrorists of all shades who have wreaked havoc on Imo communities with attendant loss of lives and property.
While focus had largely been on the precarious security situation in Orsu LGA of Imo state, not many have noticed the gathering storm in the small community of Ubulu-Ihejiofor in Oru West LGA, signaling to the gradual degeneration to anarchy and wanton blood-letting of barbaric proportion.
These nocturnal killings, our reporters learnt, have been going on for over a year now but hit a new crescendo with the recent cruel and primitive slaughter of no fewer than nine persons about ten days ago.
Beside some of these unexplained killings that have happened in Ubulu-Ihejiofor,which is Emelumba’s community there have been regular cases of mulling, kidnapping, raping and brazing robbery, all believed to be masterminded by suspected Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) elements and claimants operating within and around Ubulu-Ihejiofor.
The Yuletide was horribly marred for Ubulu-Ihejiofor people from the 21st of December, 2024 following the attack on the late Christopher Madubuko family. Late Christopher Madubuko was buried on Friday, December 20 and on Saturday, December 21, while preparations were still being made for the outing service the next day Sunday, 22nd, these gunmen struck.
Their first victims were the bouncers who were hired from Owerri, the state capital, for the event. One of the bouncers was killed while others escaped by the whiskers. Everyone in the house at the time of the attack fled for safety. When they could not find the two sons of the deceased who organized the burial, the hoodlums burnt down the house.
There are speculations that the sons of the deceased who funded the burial may have defied the hoodlums and refused to pay them before burying their father, resulting in the attack. Fortunately, the two sons were not at home when the hoodlums struck. Consequently, the outing service that should have been held the next day was aborted.
The story is also similar to the killings of January 11 in Ubulu. A young man had returned home with his brothers to bury their mother. After the burial, they were sitting in their compound drinking, ahead of the outing service the next day, when they were attacked and everyone with them butchered in the most barbaric manner that depicted a gory scene. The killers also attacked and hacked to death other young men they ran into on their way out of the village.
When the dust of the attack settled the next morning, nine young men were seen in the pool of their own blood, hacked to death for for doing practically nothing.
The people of Ubulu-Ihejiofor, both at home and in the Diaspora are yet to recover from the shock of the wave of vicious killings in the community.
A victim, Jane Ibebuogu (not real name), who was lamenting and sympathizing with the families affected by the new wave of killings wrote: “Hmmm! You will not understand this kind of pain unless you experience it; watching how your loved ones are butchered to death, not minding that they are innocent. Since the day they killed my father, I’ve not been the same again. It’s safe to say that Ubulu is no longer my home town because it holds so many sad memories for me and my family. My condolences to the affected families.”
An elderly indigene who craved anonymity had this to say: “Kidnapping for ransom, outright robbery, slaughtering of local vigilanté operatives at random, going from house to house with POS machines and AK-47 rifles wearing masks, sometimes with full military uniforms as from midnight; transferring everything from their victims’ bank accounts to their accounts and POS machines; raping of young girls and old women as old as 80 years and above; forcing their victims to call their loved ones who are abroad or in the cities to transfer huge sums of money to them and even going ahead to burn down the houses or properties of those who ran away on noticing their presence or who refused to give them the phone numbers of their relatives sometimes between 1:30 and 2:00 am in the morning! This is the latest phase of terror in Ubulu or Ubulu-Ihejiofor, Oru-West LGA where I come from.”
Consequently, most young people have fled the community. While a few of the young people may come in by day and leave before nightfall, the elderly abandon their homes at night to sleep in different churches in the community.
This report only scratched the surface, as there are many chilling stories emanating from Ubulu, all of which point to the need for speedy intervention by the government and other relevant agencies.
“So while most locals are afraid to voice their plights and the despicable state of affairs in Ubulu, it has become expedient that the Imo state government must pay close attention to what is happening in Ubulu and take urgent and decisive actions against the blood thirsty hoodlums that have besieged the community and it’s residents.”
Efforts to get the reaction of Police authorities in Imo state failed as calls and text messages sent to the state command’s spokesperson, Henry Okoye, were neither answered nor responded to”.
