HRH, Igwe (Prof) Onuorah Nwuneli, traditional ruler of Igbakwu.

By Vincent Ujumadu – Awka

The various communities of Igbakwu,  Umumbo, Omor, Umuerum, and Anaku in Ayamelum local government area of Anambra State have been engaged in a protracted land dispute that had turned the area, which is the food basket of the state, into a war zone. Over the years, lives and property worth millions of naira have been lost in the dispute.

The dispute became more pronounced after the acquisition of 3850 hectares of land by the Federal Government for the establishment of the Lower Anambra Irrigation Project for the cultivation of rice.

Recently one of the communities in the area fled to Delta State follwing the destruction of houses and farmlands in the community.

South East Voice got Igwe Prof Onuorah Nwuneli, former head of Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos and a Commissioner for Information in the old Anambra State, who is the traditional ruler of Igbakwu, one of the communities that had suffered enormous losses as a result of the land dispute to comment on the development.

Are there no historical oral narratives to enhance understanding of the vexed issues of the land conflict in the affected areas?

There are. Igbakwu like many other Ayamelum communities has boundary crises with Omor community. However, to illustrate our case here Igbakwu and Umumbo would be used as examples of historical narratives, both oral and written, based on historical oral narratives and socio-cultural indicators of early settlements in the Ayamelum area.

Both communities have been chosen as examples because they have been invaded and violently razed to the ground in a scorch earth military-style strategy.

This strategy aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy when retreating from a position. Targeted are transport vehicles, residences, communication assets, food security structures, domestic animals, including anything that could enable the targeted enemy from attempting a quick turnaround from the attack.

In 1998, in spite of the fact that it had won all the land-related cases against Omor from colonial administration to the present, Igbakwu was invaded on account of the same land, disregarding court judgments, thereby wasting human lives and destroying houses costing millions of naira.

Igbakwu people became internally displaced persons for over a year with no questions asked by anyone—not by the government of the day; not by the politicians; not even by Ndi Anambra as a whole.

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Neither financial assistance, nor food aid or palliatives were offered to the victims. Unfortunately, it was simply dismissed as community clashes.

If the government of the day had taken that heinous attack with the seriousness required and Omor was made to pay compensation or reparation for damages done then, the same strategy would not have repeated itself in Umumbo in May 2020 two decades later.

I believe and hope the Umumbo community would give their account of the destruction in their own memorandum without fear of being bullied or further intimidated into silence.

What are the main issues on the Igbakwu–Omor boundary crisis in particular?

The fundamental facts associated with the Igbakwu- Omor boundary crisis is encased in the conflicting historical claims of segments of Igbakwu community and segments of Omor community over the historical ownership of the borderlands now in dispute.

In simple words, the issue of who was first to settle on the borderlands now in issue is at the heart of the counterposed claims of ownership over the same stretch of land by segments of Igbakwu community and segments of Omor community.

The claim of ownership by the Eriator village of Igbakwu community is premised on the history of the settlement of the lands now in dispute by Aguleri migrants who migrated from their ancestral home of Aguleri to settle in the present day Igbakwu in the 17th Century A.D.

The Eriator segment of Igbakwu community also secured the ceding of land to them by the Igga community of present-day Enugu State.

Thus, Eriator has a very large expanse of land under its control. The said land includes the borderland now in dispute. It is this land that Eriator people named and called “Aguoba Land”. The original owners of the said land have been certified by seven to eight court judgments in favor of Eriator dating back to British colonial era in Nigeria.

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The history of the land dispute revealed that after the initial court judgments, Omor people started paying traditional farming season tributes to Igbakwu community.

The tribute for farming on Igbakwu land was four tubers of yam, four Igbo kola nuts, one cock and one keg of palm wine.

However, around 1963 Omor premeditatedly stopped paying the said land tribute to Igbakwu, but proceeded to grabbing and claiming ownership of the farmlands.

The counterclaim of the sections of Omor community who are now claiming the borderlands in dispute is that their own ancestors settled the subject matter land and by right of inheritance inherent in descendants they have inherited the said borderland from their own Omor ancestors.

What instigated the Umumbo/Omor current crisis?

The people of Umumbo could present their own historical oral narratives and socio-cultural indicators of early settlements in the Ayamelum area far better than anyone else, so I will not belabor that issue. However, of interest to us is the issue of land ownership and allocation in the Lower Anambra/Imo Irrigation Project (LAIP 1982)

It is a matter of fact and of record that this Nigeria Federal Government project acquired from Umumbo, Omor, Umuerum, and Anaku communities about 3580 hectares of land for the cultivation of rice.

Each of these project communities received compensations for damages from the federal government based on the marked-out inter-communal boundaries on LAIP map (1982).

In other words, the Federal Government of Nigeria is the current lawful owners of the said LAIP project farmland. The Federal Ministry of Water Resources still includes this project in their annual budget allocations.

Based on the marked-out inter-communal boundaries on LAIP map (1982), the LAIP allocated specific number of plots to each of the four communities according to the size of land expropriated from them.

Similarly, the Federal Government through its implementing agency LAIP declared as catchment area the old Anambra State {the present Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu states} citizens including Ayamelum indigenes who are interested in rice farming to request for rice plot allocations.

I, Prof Onuora Nwuneli the then Commissioner for Information in the old Anambra State in the mid to late 80s, was directed by Anambra State government to mount Development Communication Advocacy Information campaigns on “Plant a Palm Campaign” and over one million palms were planted in the state due to that campaign with its popular {odi nkpu-nkpu omele palm} ABS radio jingle in support of the plant a palm campaign; The Old Anambra State  “Plant a Tree campaign” and the Back to the Farm campaign to get all interested Ndi Anambra citizens to go into rice farming in the LAIP project.

A couple of such Ayamelum indigenes were late Igwe of Igbakwu, Tony Mabia and Chief George Ofelo, the current chairman of Isiokwe village in Igbakwu.

They got allocations in W14 clusters. It is a matter of fact that the Omor indigenes somehow managed to threaten, intimidate and finally succeeded in chasing away both Igbakwu indigenes from their W14 allocations. The Omor people now work on those plot allocations.

The Omor indigenes then gradually perfected their strategy and thus worked their way down to the farmers from other communities until they finally forced or intimidated, or edged out other non-Omor farmers away from the rice fields owned by the Federal Nigeria Government and domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.

Next, they went after the farmers from the other three communities who also donated land to the LAIP project. They trespassed and nibbled away on their allocations and finally ended up in trying to expropriate some of the Umumbo LAIP allocations.

This was vehemently resisted by Umumbo people and in response, Omor went back to their old playbook and aggressively and viciously razed to the ground Umumbo community, utilizing their classic scorch earth military strategy adopted for Igbakwu in 1998.

They did not stop at that. It was reported that they allegedly went back to town and also razed to the ground all identifiable Umumbo- owned homes and business houses.

If that is not insensitive cruelty what else is? The video and images of that vicious attack has gone viral in the social media for all to see.

This is classic abnormal medieval century Europe conflict resolution behaviour and one might also say colonial oriented native land grab conquest strategy inconsistent with social reality of 21st century civilized societal process or way of conflict resolution.

Thus, while Omor Kingdom goes around destroying social developments in neighbouring communities, it manages to retain and protect its own development giving the illusion that it is the one and only kingdom in Ayamelum that is upwardly mobile in modernity.

Are there no colonial and Nigerian Survey maps for the area?

Survey maps are available. Among them include: Basden, (1925). They include the Topographical Map of Onitsha Province; Land and Survey Department, Lagos (1935); Map of Onitsha Province showing some of the boundaries of communities in Ayamelum; Land and Survey Department, Lagos Nigeria (1956); The Map of Onitsha Province (revised) showing boundaries of virtually all the communities in Ayamelum communities.

These maps, if deployed alongside the historical oral narratives of early settlements of the Ayamelum area and related socio-cultural indicators and some certified colonial records of settlements in the area and if correlated with the various official maps, could definitely enhance understanding of the vexing issues of the land conflict in Ayamelum thus proffering plausible solutions.

Not to be ignored or discarded are the official recordings of British colonial officers on existence of various settlements in the then Onitsha Province. Some of the certified copies of these recorded settlements, their administrative content and local chiefs then could be gleaned from Igbakwu memorandum submitted to the Judicial Panel on Igbakwu-Omor land crisis.

If the Federal Government of Nigeria acquired over 3850 hectares of land in Ayamelum for the establishment of the Lower Anambra/Imo River Basin Authority Project, did the cartographic maps of the land not establish various community boundary lines to facilitate the payment of compensation to the affected communities?

Those maps do exist. Among them include: The Lower Anambra/Imo Irrigation Project (LAIP) Map of 1982 created by the federal government of Nigeria under the River Basins Development Authorities Act. This project map contains all the communities in Ayamelum clan and shows the delineation of all the community lands and boundaries from which the project land was expropriated.

What is the way forward for resolving this lingering dispute?

From all information presently available, it is imperative that surveyors, cartographers and IT experts must be mobilized and deployed to synchronise all the available maps using all socio-cultural indicators to produce an accurate map representative of Ayamelum for immediate uploading to Google map.

Ayamelum is already imaged in Google map but with scanty details. This exercise will add value by providing cartographical details required to facilitate the uploading of the resultant recreated maps onto Google map for permanency.

If that is done, the constant land-related conflicts in the area will end. Even though one of the communities has managed to instil fear into the minds of various Ayamelum communities through incessant gunfights; endless barricades of the only exit route for all Ayamelum communities, this can stop when the perpetrators are held accountable before a judicial authority.

Vanguard News Nigeria.