…Demand apology from Umuebulu Factional Paramount Ruler
By Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
Elders of Okrika Plantation in Umuebulu II, Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State have refuted the allegation by the paramount ruler and elders of Umuebulu I that they had a hand in the killing of Godwin Njoku, a youth leader of the community.
Godwin Njoku was assassinated three weeks ago in his house by unknown gunmen who were said to have invaded the community in droves.
According to sources, the gunmen had shot sporadically in the air to scare residents of Umuebulu I that night and had gone to the house of the factional paramount ruler, Eze James Nwagwu, but did not see him as he was said to have escaped for fear of his life.
Eze James Nwagwu and some elders of the community later pointed accusing fingers at members of the Okrika Plantation for the invasion of his community and killing of Godwin Njoku.
But in a swift reaction to the allegation levelled against them by Eze James Nwagwu and some elders of Umuebulu I, the elders of Okrika Plantation, in a statement, refuted the claim by the Umuebulu factional Paramount Ruler.
They explained that the members of Okrika Plantation had a long-standing cordial relationship that forbade the two parties harming each other, right from the 19th century when the forefathers of Umuebulu gave them a portion of their land to settle down as their permanent abode following the assistance the Okrika people gave them (Umuebulu forefathers) whenever they were fighting wars with other tribes.
The settlement, they noted, later came to be known as Okrika Plantation.
Explaining further, the Okrika Plantation elders said they had remained calm even in the face of provocation by the likes of Eze James Nwagwu and Godwin Njoku who they alleged recently hid under a court order to quit them from their settlement, destroying lives and property of their people in the process, all in a bid to take over the land which their ancestors gave them to settle down.
They noted that their forceful eviction from the land violated a Supreme Court judgment of November 18, 1963, that affirmed the Okrika Plantation peoples ownership of their land of a settlement known as ‘Okrika Plantation’ in Umuebulu II in a case between Nwagwu Nwosu and Others versus James Elechi and Others with Suit No. FSC/117/62.
The Okrika Plantation elders, in the statement, accused that late Godwin Njoku of being a member of the Icelanders cult group while also engaging in various forms of crimes ranging from kidnapping, land-grabbing and killing, which made him to have many enemies.
They also mandated the Umuebulu factional Paramount Ruler, Eze James Nwagwu, to retract his statement that they (Okrika Plantation people) were behind the killing of Godwin Njoku.
