By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South

OKPANAM community, the country home of the late Major General Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, leader of the first Nigerian military coup, located in Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State, has not known peace since 2010 following the offensive launched by a gang of land speculators, kidnappers and gunmen.

Elders, women and youths are the mercy of the gang with some security agents allegedly giving them cover. Members of the gang, without visible means of livelihood, are reportedly living big. Reports say they own buildings and luxurious cars purchased from the proceeds of land illegally sold.

*One of the parcels of land in dispute

On May 13, 2013, the community, in a letter, from its secretary, Prince Ken Young, to the Commissioner of Police, Delta State, Mr. Ikechukwu Aduba, said it was under siege by the gang threatening to kidnap, commit arson and murder anybody that challenges them over their activities.

Until recently when Aduba allegedly put his foot down on the matter, a police team from Abuja was allegedly using the office of the Inspector General of Police to obstruct investigations into the matter. Sunday Vanguard, however, learnt that police authorities have asked the team to hands off the matter for the police in the state. A leader of the community, who confirmed the arrest of some of the gangsters, said, “Remnants of the gang are still holding sway.  The remaining leaders are training new boys in a bid to continue harassing the people.”

The Acting Diokpa of Obodogwugwu and Unmuomake , Okpanam, Ogbueshi P.K. Obanya, Diokpa of Ogbeowele village, Mr. Eric Nwabuoku, Acting Diokpa of Umudigba, Ogbueshi Ugo Okocha, Ikwele of Okpanam, Wilson Nwanze, Diokpa of Umuchim, Mr. D.D. Amadi and other elders of the community, who spoke to our reporter, said the ‘militants’ had not only seized the land belonging to the community, which they were selling to non-indigenes, but were also stopping natives from accessing their farmlands.

Sources said that before May 13, when the community alerted the Delta State Commissioner of Police, the gang, heavily armed with dangerous weapons to wit: guns, battle axes, cutlasses and iron rods, was preventing indigenes from going to their farmlands, while they brought surveyors to split the community land into plots.

It is common knowledge in Okpanam that if you buy land in the community without passing through the gang, you will have himself to blame, as the boys would spell trouble for you unless you settle them. But if you buy through them, they would provide security for you to build your house.

Following incursion into the community’s land, the community leaders alleged that, in April, 2010, they hired a surveyor and a bulldozer to partition the area known as Enugwu-Egbu, Phase II after the completion and distribution of Phase 1 of Obodogwugwu land, but the armed gang destroyed about 1,000 beacons laid in Obodogwugwu land and razed the bulldozer.

They said the ‘militants’ invaded the house of the chairman of the Land Committee,  Hon. Chibueze Aniemeka, aka Piro, May 25, 2012, at about 1.00 am and  burnt  his vehicle parked in front of his house and also his restaurant.

The chairman said the boys boasted they had warned him to hands off the Land Committee and he refused, and so anything that happened to him, he should take it like that.

According to another elder, Ogbueshi Obanya, “The boys were illegally selling communal land, including those previously acquired by Delta State government, but now returned to the community and, presently, they have threatened to eliminate the elders and youths, who are loyal to constituted authority in the community.”

The community’s solicitor, Ewere Odiase Esq, in a letter to the Inspector General of Police, said, “These culprits who have acquired monstrous sums of money from illegal sale of communal land have manipulated the police on several occasions to prevent investigation and prosecution.” In a petition, dated 28 August, 2012, also to the Inspector General of Police, Chief M.N. Dunkwu told the police boss that some policemen were conspiring with the boys to frustrate police investigation.

Sunday Vanguard was reliably informed that one of the key suspects told the police, when he was arrested, that the land, which the community was accusing him of hijacking, actually belonged to him, and that it was acquired from his father, who is a native of Obodogwugwu.

A police source in Asaba said, “The tension in Okpanam over the land matter has defused since the police authorities ordered the Abuja team, which was interfering in the matter, to leave the investigation to the police in Delta State. Even the mercenaries that were recruited, I know they would have left the place because, for some time now, the community has not reported any fresh case.”

But, a community leader told Sunday Vanguard, “There is still tension, we are just being careful because we do not know who is who among the policemen. We do not know who to confide in, but it is true that some of the boys have been arrested”.