By Godwin Egba / Special Correspondent, Port Harcourt
One year after the bloody communal crisis that erupted between the Ekporo and Ogu communities in Rivers State, over 5,000 displaced Ekporo victims are still wallowing in limbo as refugees in their own land.
Ekporo is a community in Eleme Local Government Area and Ogu is in Ogu-Bolo Local Government Area all in Rivers State. There has no love lost between them for ages over their disputed boundary land.
On the surface, the two communities exude an air of peace, tranquility and serenity away from the hustle and bustle of the state garden city life. But their outlook is deceptive considering the deep animosity, hostility or acrimony between them over the disputed boundary that has created a wide gulf between them.
The two rival communities have produced prominent sons in government like ex-minister of Transport, Chief Precious Ngelale of Ekporo in Eleme and Chief Sekibo from Okrika Local Government Area among other prominent figures. Yet the lingering crisis tearing their communities apart seems to be an intractable and a Herculean task they have not been able to resolve.
Some observers in Eleme likened the relationship between Eleme and Okrika people to the relationship between the Israelites and Palestinians over their age long bloody fight over the disputed Gaza Strip.
In 1983, the Okrika and Eleme engaged in a bloody clash over a common boundary resulting to a loss of over 100 lives, including women and children on both sides.
As typical of government insensitivity, both the federal and the Rivers State government are yet still to find a lasting solution to the boundary dispute between the two neighbouring communities.
A royal Eleme chief, Emmanuel Bebe-Oneh-Eh-Eta XIII, who presides over Ebubu Eleme community, said at a public forum that Ekporo had suffered a major attack from Okrika warlords, who allegedly want to exterminate Ekporo people, whose population was higher than theirs.
“Old and young people have been massacred and properties worth millions of naira were either destroyed or looted,” Bebe-Oneh-Eh-Eta XIII stated.
He further recalled that on October 4, 1999, some aggressive persons suspected to have come from Okrika axis attacked the Eleme people in their mission to close the Port Harcourt Refinery gate in Alesa Eleme with a mock coffin.
According to him, the same night at about 11:00pm, some Ogu warlords allegedly overran and sacked the Ekporo community and razed down residential houses to debris.
However, Chief Precious Ngelale, who was in government then as a minister of Transport under ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, won the sympathy of the government and rebuilt the community and the displaced natives were re-integrated to their homeland.
In September 2013 or thereabouts, the same agents of destruction suspected to have come from Ogu axis once again rose in guerilla attack style and overran the length and breadth of Ekporo sleeping community as alleged by Eleme sources. The attack, said hb b was like a long awaiting opportunity after over ten years of rehabilitating the deserted community and its people by the government.
Daily Independent gathered from reliable independent sources in the State that the genesis of the 2013 mayhem was a building of a Police Station on the disputed land between the two communities apart from other encroachments on the Ekporo land by Okrikans.
It was alleged that some Ogu youths were armed by unnamed persons and were deployed to the project site, to prevent any possible interference by Ekporo people but the armed gang allegedly chose to attack and sack the entire Ekporo community.
Few days after the incident, the councilor representing the Ekporo ward in the Eleme legislative Assembly, Neslon Ogbuji, was strangled to death by suspected and unidentified Ogu invaders when he went for on the spot assessment of destruction done to his community.
Sympathizers of the young budding politician believed that he was a victim of powerful politics played in Abuja that annexes the weak and the poor buoyed back home in Rivers State by a partisan Nigeria Police.
The Eleme Caretaker Council Chairman, Oji Nyime Ngofa, who always rose to the security challenges in his domain, expressed his bitterness and lamented over the lingering cridis between his Eleme rich area and its neighbouring Okrika people.
Oji said he is at a loss to why the authorities have failed to expedite action on the boundary related problems bordering the two communities till date.
However, Ngofa said he and his council of chiefs, community and youth leaders are not resting on their oars until peace returns to their Ekporo devastated or ruined community.
In their collective moves, Ngofa along with some of his Eleme opinion leaders and appointed state functionaries like Mr. Fred Mbombo Igwe, Rivers State Commissioner for Sports, Mr Josiah Olu, member representing Eleme Constituency in the Rivers State House of Assembly, Chief Godwin Bebe Okpabi, Commissioner in the Rivers State Civil Service Commission, and the Eleme Youth Council (EYC) president, Comrade Isaac Obe, among others, have remained resolute in their determination to make peace prevail amongst the Ekporo and Ogu communities despite some mischievous hands sabotaging their efforts.
July 5 marked another significant relentless effort by Ngofa and his counterpart Ogu/Bolo Local Government Area Council Caretaker Chairman, Mrs. Maureen Tamuno, and their various stakeholders came together for a security meeting before the Rivers State Police Area Commander, Bori, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Abutu Yaro, to proffer solutions to the crisis; and to also allay the fear on people’s mind that there could be counter-attack being planned by the aggrieved parties.
Ngofa and Tamuno, who inherited the age long insecurity situation between their two communities demonstrated publicly that above all misgivings, peaceful co-existence between their communities is most paramount and sacrosanct to them as the people’s servant leaders.
The two caretaker chairmen, who appeared as beacons of peace, conspicuously drove in one vehicle to the venue of the meeting which was held peacefully.
Though a couple of pressmen who were there to witness the deliberation were not allowed in but after the meeting the Police Area Commander, in his brief response, said the main thrust of the meeting was the formation of a committee of five persons that would meet within shortest possible time to come up with workable resolutions that would effect peaceful re-integration of the displaced Ekporo refugees back to their home land without fear of attack or further crisis.
The Area Commander who presided over the meeting said the composition of the 5-man committee includes the two local government area caretaker chairmen, a member from each of the two local government area’s tradition Council of chiefs and the area commander himself.
Though Ngofa declined to speak to the press but the chief staff of Ogu-Bolo Local Government Area council, Mr. Stephen Abolo, who stood in on behalf of his caretaker committee chairman, attested that the meeting had a useful head start towards a lasting peaceful solution to the crisis.
Abolo said that overtime, they were aware that for certain reasons best known to security agencies, there had been security issues which had brought about some unrest, stressing that the basic essence of the meeting was to ensure that the two communities once again live peacefully.
The chief of staff emphasized that there is headway for peace, which informed the formation of the five-man committee whose members are of high integrity in the society, pointing out that the peace movement is a process and not a decree.
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