Nwifuru, IGP, DG-DSS And NSA: Rise In Defence Of The Nigerian Constitution In Effium Community

When the Ebonyi State Peace committee on Effium community led by Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu surreptitiously introduced a non-existent land dispute narrative as the cause of Effium war, people wondered why the peace committee was taking actions capable of complicating and proliferating the already bad war.

However, the suspicion that the untrue land dispute narrative was brought in order to justify a premeditated plan to deprive Effium ordinary people of their interests in land and transfer same to mineral speculators whose agents were allegedly fingered as having caused the war in 2021 and sustaining the said war for four years has been proved by emerging facts. Thousands of men, women and children have been killed in the four-year old Effium community war. Many who survived bullets and other war arsenals have been rendered penurious, physically-challenged, widows, widowers, orphans or childless by the violent war.

In preparation for the takeover of the mineral belt of Effium via the demarcation proposal, Ufiom section of Effium community had incorporated a mining company known as “Effium Community Mineral and Natural Resources Company Limited” with RC number 1858550 and TIN – 1068098076 on November 9, 2021. That was eight months into the war.

This company alleged to be a front for the man whose bid to take over Nigercem Nkalagu had suffered perennial setbacks has Barr Odah Clement Omekannaya, James Eje Agena, Olo Emmanuel Ekpe, Ogbonna Okenya Odah, Edene Chinatu Collins, Echem Onwe Christian, Chukwu Godwin O, Edegiri Friday Umoha, Ede John E and Omenka Sunday Egbe as directors. Most of the directors of this company have been fingered and detained severally by security agencies for allegedly causing and sponsoring the Effium war which began when Barr Odah was chairman of Ohaukwu LGA! A study of the purported map of Effium Community as released by the Ambassador Ogbuewu committee on 14th January, 2025 showed that the unconstitutional demarcation proposal mapped out the entire mineral belt of Effium community as surveyed by Ibeto Cement company between 2008 and 2009 (from Ewhuru Ukfuru in Okporo, through Nwekendiagu, Inikiri, Eguenyi 1, Eguenyi 2, Iteahara to Akparata) for the owners of Effium Community Mineral and Natural Resources Company Limited! Ambassador Ogbuewu insists that only this criminal demarcation can restore permanent peace to Effium Community! I disagree with him on this point; and I am not alone on this. I can vouch that the governor of Ebonyi State, Builder Francis Nwifuru, who swore to defend the Nigerian Constitution, and so many other Nigerians believe in the supremacy and the efficacy of the Nigerian Constitution.

For the records, the land demarcation proposal of the Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu – led Effium peace implementation committee is a crude affront on sections 1, 15, 42, 43 and 44 of the 1999 CFRN as well as on Section 34 and 36 of the Land Use Act Cap. L5, LFN 2004 and should be outrightly rejected by Governor Francis Nwifuru.

Secondly, demarcation of land between brothers, decades after the demolition of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Benin moats in deference to the global village which the world has become is retrogressive and offensive to the much cherished national unity. Demarcation is also incompatible with modernity and socioeconomic development.

The proposal is equally repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience. Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu’s proposed arbitrary transfer of the entire Effium mineral belt to a private company is anti-peace and a recipe for proliferation of wars because apart from economic interests of a rural agro-population, more sacrosanct interests are involved: For centuries, Ezza Effium and Ufiom people have lived together in Effium community. Ebonyi people rever the memories of their progenitors, patriarchs and martriachs represented by their graves or final resting places which constitute totems and symbols of the dignity of respective families and kindreds.

In Effium setting, land demarcation amounts to offering graves of people’s patriarchs, matriarchs, ancestors and progenitors to strangers for desecration! This was part of what people who refused to leave Effium community in the face of the hostilities have been defending since 2021 in the over 36 remaining Ezza Effium villages till this moment. Every Ebonyi, nay Igbo, man or woman with blood in his veins, including Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu and members of his committee, would do anything to protect the graves of his or her progenitors from desecration! This factor, more than anything else, is capable of turning a demarcated Effium community into the Nigerian version of “Gaza Strip”.

Currently, Effium community has no geographical boundaries for its 95 polling units, five electoral wards and two development centres. One would expect a peace committee to recommend the demarcation of Effium community along these politically acceptable delineations and allow people who find themselves within any of the political constituencies to forge bonds of peace, love and unity.

The descent of Ambassador Ogbuewu into the arena of conflict and deployment of manipulative tactics, threats, criminal imputations and harrasments in order to cow dissenting voices and subdue the bedlam that have continued to trail the unconstitutional land demarcation proposal has robbed the Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu committee of neutrality and rendered the committee’s unconstitutional recommendation nugatory.

The hypocrisy of the Effium peace implementation committee chairman, Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu, is that in his Anmegu Community in Ikwo LGA his Abina Anmegu section of the community and Ndu-Owhoke Anmegu section of the community have been locked in a fratricidal bloody dispute over interest in Egunwenu land near the Assumption Catholic Parish for close to four decades.

The Effium land demarcation proposer never deemed it fit to demarcate the Egunwenu land. Need I mention the perennial Ndufu Anmegu and Ndegu Anmegu violent land dispute in the same home of the self-same Ambassador Ogbuewu? In Effium war, no land is in dispute except the one that the Effium peace committee wants to introduce through the proposed unconstitutional land demarcation. That obnoxious proposal has divided Effium community into six irreconcilable groups across board and some of them have been venting their resentments through Ebonyi radio and other media platforms. Good conscience demands that Ambassador Ogbuewu and ilk should recuse themselves from Effium Peace implementation committee.

The governor of Ebonyi State, Builder Francis Nwifuru; IGP Egbetokun; the Director-general of Department of State Security, Mr. Adeola Ajayi; and the National Security Adviser, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu are hereby enjoined to use their good offices to fast-track the restoration of peace in Effium community and to ensure that the Nigeria Constitution prevails therein by rejecting the demarcation proposal of Ambassador Ogbuewu’s committee for being unconstitutional, anti-peace and a recipe for proliferation of the Effium war.

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WRITTEN BY MONDAY EZE