By Tony Nyong
THE ruins allegedly brought about by the fighters  of Eastern Obolo and Western Andoni of Rivers State on Ikot Akpan Udo villages in Ukpum Ete clan in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State on April 28, 2008 are still visible almost four years after.

Though a few youths have managed to erect  make-shift structures on the rubbles left behind by the barbaric attack on their lands, many, particularly  traders, farmers and fishermen in the area, who survived the shock, are still recounting their woes.

At press time, aborigines of Ikot Akpan Udo can only point at the rubbles of their burnt buildings, shops, churches and market stalls to show that they were once proud owners of concrete houses in the kingdom. Poverty is palpable and almost visible among the people.

Ikot Akpan Udo people lost 13 of their kinsmen, homes, valuables and economy to the invasion.

*One of the village ruins

They want justice; they want to be compensated. They want to know why the federal and the state governments should ignore them and their call for attention. They want to know why those who were  instigators of the pogrom and hoodlums declared wanted by the police are today not only walking freely, but also benefiting from appointments by  government.

They claim that those who were responsible for the carnage are members of the current government, and they told the state police commissioner at Uyo during a recent meeting that government should heed their call to rebuild the kingdom.

Secretary to the Village Council, Edem Alexander, told  Sunday Vanguard at Uyo that government has not bothered about the plight of the people who are wallowing in abject poverty.

He said: “Government by the very action and position taken is setting a stage for another blood bath that may consume the entire people and wipe out the whole generation. Those who fled the village in the wake of the infraction are afraid of returning home to invest, just as goods worth millions of naira were lost to the conflict.”

Life has not been the same after the incident as another citizen, Pastor Emmanuel James, said  he was still in pains following the destruction of the private school he had established in the community and all the computer sets  looted even when the school principal was from Eastern Obolo.

Like many others who fled into the bush during the incident, Angela Idim has not recovered from the trauma she suffered. She said she was in primary six when the alleged  Andoni raid forced them into the bush.

For Akpan Udo Ukpong, he could not come to terms with why government would grant amnesty to the alleged  perpetrators of such heinous crime after they pulled down a whole community while victims of the invasion were abandoned.

He said: “I am a retired teacher. When the perpetrators  came, we all fled and they destroyed everywhere. We have tried to get help from government after the incident but nothing has come. The painful thing is that those the government knew created the trouble in the area are the ones they are taking care of now and leaving us to suffer. Many of us died of all sorts of ailments. We buried a lot of people in the bush. Every family has one bitter experience or the other to tell.”

Many other  victims of the raid and devastation spoke to  Sunday Vanguard in Ikot Akpan Udo with so much emotion. They said four years after; the state government was yet to come up with anything as white paper on the report of the panel of enquiry that was set up.

Chief Oscar Abel,acting Village Head of Ikot Akpan Udo, who also spoke, blinked several times while  tears  rolled down his chin as he relived  the incident. He said: “My life was very close to death. I could not return to my beloved town for many weeks.

For the whole period, I have lived in exile. Terror was unleashed on my community. Look at the remains of my building,” pointing at the rubbles of a building that had been overgrown by weeds directly in front of where he sat down with the reporter.

Queried over what was the cause of the fight, he said: “Eastern Obolo accused us of being responsible for the death of their chief, but this is a lie from the pit of hell. They wanted  to take our land by force. In1967, they killed two of our young men, Udo Etok Akpan and Akpan Edward Akpaka.

In 1975, they burnt Itak Abasi Village and, in1989, they also killed one of our own, Etukudo Ukwa, and macheted five others. They destroyed churches and after we forgave them and accepted to live in harmony with them following a peace panel headed by one Pastor Offong of the Apostolic Church in the area they wreaked this havoc on us again.

“We were tricked by them to come for a peace meeting. A church was chosen as venue for the peace talk, and, while we were all assembled in the church, they raided the village, destroyed all the houses, vandalized and looted the whole community. This 2008 attack was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Eteidung Akpan Urua Oton, the Village Head of Itak Abasi, also spoke. He said: “I was not in the village, I had gone to the farm when  the aggressors  invaded my village, killed 13 people and burnt all the houses. When I came back, I saw that my house was destroyed. All my valuables were gone. We are suffering. Government should come to our aid.”

Chairman of Ikot Akpan Udo Town Council, Elder Sylvester Ubak,  said the Akwa Ibom police commissioner, Umar Gwadabe, had, on Friday, May  4, sent a letter to the village, inviting the chiefs to report at his office  in  Uyo, on Wednesday, May 9, 2012.

He said: “Maybe the Amazaba Andoni people of Eastern Obolo LGA  had expected the police commissioner to persuade us to embrace peace and accept to go back and live with them. This cannot work because it would amount to another unholy alliance.”

He urged government to relocate the Amazaba Andoni people to the area known as Otunene and Ememen, stressing: “Government should also establish a boundary to make sure they no longer come close to where we live. Even though that part of the land still belongs to us, but we are ready to give it to them provided they live far away from us.”

Like many others who escaped death by the whiskers, the youth president, Comrade Abasiokon Etukudo, alleged that the Amazaba Andonis of Eastern Obolo LGA  desecrated ancient traditional norms. He said: “Even with the free and compulsory education of Governor Godswill Akpabio, children in this community are not going to school.

There is no electricity as transformers have been vandalized.

The only health centre was destroyed, and there is no market in the community because the market was burnt by the Amazaba Andonis. The potable water provided by the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has  been  damaged.

The state government does not care about the welfare of the citizenry hence  they should not force us to live together. A gang leader who was indicted by security report at that time is today a member of the Andoni Transition Committee.”