Chief Okoi Obono-Obla, a lead team member of Obono Obono & Associates and former special adviser on prosecution to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has called on the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun to question the clan head and village heads in Ebom community of Abi LGA of Cross River State, Nigeria.
He said there are allegations that they were allegedly involved in gunrunning and sponsorship of communal skirmishes since 2006 against Ebijakara people in same LGA.
The call was contained in their petition dated June 17, 2024 to the Inspector General of Police.
This is said to follow the arrest of a man from Taraba State, James Musa caught with heavy and sophisticated weapons in Ebom, who has accused one Solomon Christian Okori and clan head and other village heads of financing him.
Obono—Obla said “The essence of this petition is to bring to the attention of the Inspector General of Police the ugly development, which may prove a clue to the incident of January 2006 and the continued instability that has engulfed this region triggering intermittent communal violence and hostilities that has defied Government intervention.”
The Ebom people are said to have had upper hand where they succeeded in displacing entire Ebijakara people and leveling their houses.
Thy allegedly recruited, financed, and deployed a militia force armed with lethal and sophisticated weaponry, including dynamite and assault rifles which stormed and launched total assault on Ebijakara community.
Sources said the Ebijakara people are now living as refugees in neighboring communities such as Usumutong, Ediba, Ugep, Biase, Calabar etc.
According to sources, “The militia force of Ebom is still occupying the ruins of Ebijakara and has seized all the surrounding lands belonging to Ebijakara.
“More than five hundred people from Ebijakara were murdered in cold blood by the militia force of Ebom”.
It is understood that The Cross River State Government set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry headed by The Honorable Justice S. Obi (as he then was) to probe the remote and immediate cause of the carnage and violence.
The Government had issued a white paper, but this has not been acted upon.
Obono-Obla said, “The ambivalent and lukewarm attitude of the state government has emboldened the Ebom community.
Reacting, Prof Bassey Eyo Bassey of University of Calabar, an Ebom indigene, said the arrest of “the Gun runner in Ebom community has nothing to do with the unfortunate event between Ebom and Ebijakara communities which occurred since 11 th January,2006.”
The Professor said that the state government is quite acquainted with the issues in both communities.
Also reacting, Dr David Etta, member representing Abi LGA, an indigene of Ebom, said in the last few years peace has returned to both communities as he and other stakeholders have intensified peace talks.
