Women threaten to march naked over land dispute

By Tony Edike

ENUGU— HUNDREDS of women, youths and elders in Ibite, Awhum village in the Udi Local Government Area of Enugu state, yesterday staged a peaceful demonstration to protest what they called the unwarranted and unjustifiable encroachment on their land by inmates of a Catholic Monastery located in the town.

The women threatened to go naked during the next round of demonstrations, should the Mount Calvary Cistercian Monastery refuse to heed their demand to stay-off and stop trespassing on an area, which the community considers their only farmland.

The placard bearing villagers carried out their demonstrations before policemen,  who had come to investigate a case of threat to life and malicious damage leveled against them by the monks, an allegation the villagers said was  “malicious and unholy effort” to deceive the police and the public as to the real issues in dispute between the Monastery and the community.

Some of the placards displayed during yesterday’s demonstration read, “Our generosity has become our own undoing”, “Those we thought were holy have turned out to be demons”, “The hood does not make the monk-we have found out the hard way”, “Confine yourselves to the land we gave you”, “Unacceptable: Soul winners have become land grabbers”, amongst others.