By  FESTUS AHON

UGHELLI—AT least 51 houses have been razed and scores of persons displaced in Ibrede, a fishing community in Ndokwa-East Local Government Area, Delta State, in renewed hostilities following a land dispute between the community and Ugbo family.

It was gathered that some buildings were destroyed and some persons left with varying degrees of machete injuries on January 29, over the land which is said to be over 228,000 hectares and comprising of over 100 fish ponds, 20 lakes, several brooks and Agip pipeline running through.

Speaking with the Vanguard on the incident, President General of the community, Mr. Finbarrs Onomerike, said tension in “the dispute was put to an end when the Ugbo took the matter to court. However, there was this committee set up by Prof. Emiri, who intervened in the matter and there was an amicable and out of court resolution of the matter which everybody supported.

“There was relative peace until April 30, when a son of the Ugbo family, stormed the community with four vehicles loaded with police officers and started raiding the community youths. They harassed the people. On their way, they arrested the traditional ruler of the community, HRM J.B Iliromah, who was on his way to hospital for treatment and took him to Asaba.

“Having arrested the monarch, the Ugbo family members were jubilating, and at this point, a serious pandemonium had broken out in the community while miscreants took advantage to the situation to loot and burn houses at will.”

He accused the police, the Chairman of Ndokwa East Local Government Area and the member representing Ndokwa East constituency in the state House of Assembly of bias in the handling of the matter.

On his part, the President General of the Ugbo family, said that the land belonged to his family, adding that “all these years, generation after generation, to the seventh generation, have been enjoying this land and we have not had any problem with Ibrede community.”

Disclosing that his family had been taking one third and the Ibrede community, two third of the fishing proceeds, he alleged that the crisis was as a result of a declaration by the community’s President General, at the community’s conference “that my family no longer has any part of the land, and that it is now a community land.

“On January 21, this year, we wrote a letter to the local government chairman, who called a security council meeting where parties were invited and a decision was reached that nobody should go into the place for now pending a peaceful resolution. Four days later, the President General and some others breached the agreement again and took people there to fish in several fishing ponds. The security agents and the chairman of the council said that since they had breached the agreement, the security meeting he and the others were invited and they were detained.