By Abdullahi Ringim

The Edda Intervention and Rescue Initiative, a group pressing for the rights of the people of Edda Clan known as the Afikpo South LGA has written to the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu complaining of about 22 cases of murder, torture, assault, rape and other crimes on the people.

The letter that was duly and formally received at the office of the IGP on May 20, 2020 complained that these incidents contained in the petition had been on since about 2007 with some of them reported to the police and no action taken.

The situation boiled over between May 2 and May 6 when three incidents of murder by alleged cult groups linked to politicians occurred in Owutu Edda.

As if not enough siege on the people of Edda, another incident occurred on May 10, 2020 at Ogwuma Edda where a man of 20 years, Oji Sunday who later spoke to the police and the media after his recovery from beating, cuts on his body recounted that he was about being buried alive when rescue came his way.

However, on March 27, at Nguzu Edda, another young man of 19, Chidi Oji was also gunned down and his body taken away by the alleged killers.

While the people live in fear as they know not who the next victim would be, they accused the police in the LGA and state of not doing much to investigate or arrest anybody.

“Our complaint is about the death of four persons between March 27 and May 6, and not a single arrest has been made. Even when arrests are made, the accused persons who walk free are left out while people unconnected with the incident are apprehended and later released to send the impression that something was done.

The government at the state is aware of these incidents and after Governor Dave Umahi had addressed the state and called on the police and the DSS to do their work at the last killings, not a single person has been arrested.

“The tardiness emboldened the same persons to embark on the torture and said burying alive of another person four days after.

“Almost all these incidents have been linked to members of a group called MOREKANBEDONE which is said to be a terror group serving the interest of a politician in Edda. And some of the incidents not linked to them are still politically motivated and we want answers to all these if there is still law and order in Nigeria, Ebonyi State and Edda.

“We have lived in this anarchy, fear and intimidation for too long and we call for rescue. We have written the IGP, the DG of the Department of State Security (DSS), the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission and the Chief of Army Staff to come to our rescue. We can’t bear the terror any more otherwise we will all be dead.

A lot of members of the MOREKANBEDONE group fronting for some politicians have been fingered in the past and we want the police and all agents of state to investigate arrest and prosecute people involved in these.

“We want the allegations proven and justice served because the silence of the past is what made their instrumentality of carnage so potent. There should be a stop now.

“As helpless people who had already ceded their rights to self-protect to the state, we seek immediate and sufficient protection of the state before all of us are murdered and gone,” the signatories to the petition cried.

They lamented that: “In the past years, Edda drips blood of the innocent and political opponents tagged enemies, and also the blood of misguided young people who are deceived into cultism.

Even as the present killings in Nguzu, Owutu and Ogwuma Edda are on, between March 27 and May 10, a total of five deaths, Abakaliki is still summoning meetings after speaking in public as unbiased.”

“But the failure of the government and law enforcement agencies to arrest accused persons whose names and identities have been revealed to the police and others baffles and make us ask if the government actually gives support to MOREKANBEDONE and the force that created it.”

“Edda cries to these agencies to know if their rights have been subsumed under those of the MOREKANBEDONE members’ rights to kill and not be punished.”

Picture: Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu