Abacha indigenes besiege Anambra Govt House in protest over lopsided leadership

By Ifeizu Joe 

Indigenes of Abacha community in Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State on Tuesday besieged the Light House, Awka, the seat of power, in a peaceful protest over leadership crisis rocking the community.

The indigenes who were in their hundreds wielded placards with diverse inscriptions conveying their demand for the governor of the state, Prof Chukwuma Soludo to intervene, to avoid breakdown of law and order.

The protesters were led by the Traditional Prime Minister of the community, Chief Jonas Okafor. During an address, Okafor stated that the peace in the community was now fragile and that angry youths were ready to engage in violence as their own form of protest.

Okafor told officials of the Anambra State government who received them that their community was made up of two major villages: Akanato and Umudisi, and that the community has a power sharing arrangement for the positions of traditional ruler, traditional prime minister (Onowu) and president general. While one each of the villages held the monarch and Onowu positions respectively, the seat of the president general rotated among the families that held the Onowu position, as a way of balancing power.

The protesters who are from Akanato part of Abacha community lamented that the monarch who is a beneficiary of the arrangement had thwarted it to elect someone from same village as himself as the president general of the community in violation of the arrangement.

“We are here to beg our governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo to intervene because the crisis in our community may get to a time when it may get out of hand. Right now, the youths of the community are very bitter, but we have been calming them down, but for how long can we hold them?

“The monarch himself was brought to power through this power sharing formula, I’m surprised why he has now chosen to work against the same thing that he benefited from. We will not like violence to erupt in our community, that is why we embarked on this peaceful protest,” Okafor stated.

The Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor, Dr Okechi Egbuna who received the protesters thanked them for remaining peaceful, while assuring that the governor will wade into the matter and ensure that it is amicably resolved.