Following incessant attacks by suspected herdsmen, a community in Awgu Local Government Area in Enugu State has been deserted for more than three years by its inhabitants.
Speaking when members of the commission of enquiry into the attack on Nimbo community visited the area on Monday, a leader of the community, Chief Onyemelu Okeke, said it had been in ruins ever since.
Okeke, who is the traditional prime minister of Obinagu Obofia Ugwuleshi, told the fact-finding mission that the village had been uninhabited for fear of herdsmen attack.
He alleged that the community, which is on the border of Enugu and Abia States, on the Enugu/Port Harcourt Expressway, was constantly attacked by suspected herdsmen.
He said their women became victims of rape, residents killed and their farm land destroyed by cattle, adding that they had to relocate to the hinterland for the safety of their lives.
Okeke said they were helpless and appealed to the government to eject the herdsmen who had taken possession of the deserted community to enable the people to return to their homes.
He said the people were predominantly peasant farmers and were currently faced with difficulties in their adopted communities.
Okeke said their market, which was the only public infrastructure in the community, had collapsed as there was no one to maintain it.
Also speaking, Patricia Chukwu, a member of the community, told the panel how her husband was murdered in cold blood by suspected herdsmen in the community.
Chukwu, who gave her husband’s name as Patrick Chukwu, said he was killed at midnight on the ill-fated day.
She said the incident made her household to abandon their home and relocate to a nearby community where they lived as tenants.
She said: “We were all sleeping when the herdsmen invaded our home.
“They told my husband to bring all the money he had, but he told them that there was no money.
“They killed him with their machete.
“My children and I witnessed the murder of my husband and the trauma of the incident and the fear that they would come again made us to run away.”
Chukwu said life had not remained the same as it had been difficult to take care of the family.
A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria, who was in company of the members of the commission, reports that the community, with more 300 households, had been overgrown with weeds and shrubs.
Most of the buildings in the community have either fallen or have cracked walls and hanging ceilings with cow dung littered all over the land.
Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State set up the commission of inquiry following the invasion of Nimbo community, where no fewer than 11 persons were killed by suspected herdsmen.
One of their terms of reference was to look into all the communities where the herdsmen live and do their business as well as their relationship with their host communities.
The panel was also mandated to ascertain the condition such businesses were carried out.
No fewer than 105 memoranda were submitted by communities and interest groups in the course of the sittings.
NAN.
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