The Executive Council Chairman of Ivo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Mr Emmanuel Ajah, and a member of the State Elders Council, Mazi Ogbonnaya Onu, have called on the government and security agencies to investigate the incessant security threat and Kidnapping in the Council Area.
According to them, the recent kidnapping of a man, his wife, his 12-year-old daughter, and a farmer by unknown kidnappers a few days after the community vigilante security outfit was arrested by the Nigerian Army remains an issue that needs to be investigated.
The stakeholders disclosed this when Tribune Online contacted them over the criminality that is ravaging some parts of their community and has led to the deaths of many citizens and passersby.
According to the stakeholders, there is a need for a proper investigation to ascertain the brain behind the kidnapper’s operation right at the community vigilante security post.
They, however, call on political stakeholders from the community to come home and join forces in safeguarding their community to avoid more killings in their area.
Recall that the area has been a dead trap, as many lives have been lost there.
Mazi Onu, narrating how the problem started, said there have been incidents of kidnapping in the local government for some years now, with lives lost.
He said the menace started during a former administration in the local government when herdsmen invaded the farms of indigenes in the area and destroyed their farms, which led to the confiscation of their cows and the killing of one of the herdsmen.
Onu noted that the problem was resolved during a stakeholder meeting of the local government with the herdsmen with compensation paid, and that since then, kidnapping has become a recurring problem in the mineral-rich local government.
He expressed dismay that the crime has persisted under the present administration in the local government, which, he said, waded into the menace to prevent the occurrences immediately after it came on board last year.
He then called for the release of the four people from the area, including a couple and their daughter, who were kidnapped recently by the local government and have not been released.
“The issue of kidnapping has become a serious problem. It dated back to the past administration in the local government when herdsmen led their cows and invaded people’s farms, and there was a reprisal attack from the village, and one of them died.
“That was when all these things started. I linked them to the then Chairman of the local government, and a stakeholders meeting was called, and we were all there. After the meeting, they took the corpse away.
“There were other incidents that took place in the same place where some indigenes took away some cows and stocked them in their places.
That was also reconciled, and money was paid for those cows as compensation.
“Now, kidnappers suddenly reappeared from Lokpanta, a border on the local government, and the kidnappers find it very easy to escape from that border.
“These kidnappers killed four people from Amaze. When they caught some people on that same route, a ransom was paid, and from that time on, they started collecting ransom.
“Immediately the present Chairman of the local government came in, he waded into the matter through the efforts of the police and local vigilantes.”.
“I want the government and security agencies to make an investigation on how these kidnappers got to know that our vagabond security is no longer there.
Also, we want to know who petitioned the local vigilante that led to the arrest of our local security,” he said
However, another source from the community said the kidnapping in the area has political undertones.
He then called on Governor Francis Nwifuru to intervene for the safety of the citizens in the area.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the council has noted that efforts are being made to recover the victims alive and safe in due time.
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