Community accuses Umunya monarch of stoking crisis in Oyi council

THE indigenes of Amakpu Ifite Nteje community in Oyi local council of Anambra State have asked the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) and other security agencies to hold the traditional ruler of Umunya, His Royal Highness, Kris Onyekwuluje, responsible for the tension between them and a neighbouring community.

In a petition to the security agencies by the town union chairman, Paul Alegbune, which was copied the council’s “stakeholders,” the community accused the monarch of misinforming the youth about the real owners of some stretch of land at Aguocha and Isiyi, which belongs to Nteje people.

While accusing him of trying to divert public attention from the domestic problems in his Umunya community, the Nteje natives said the Nya 1 of Umunya was behind the petition by the Umunya youth, which claimed that the stretch of land in Aguocha and Isiyi belonged to Umunya.

The Nteje community expressed surprise that the Umunya monarch allegedly incited the youth from his domain to agitate for the land in spite of a subsisting court judgment that affirmed that the landed belongs to Amagu Agwa Ifite Nteje.

They further condemned his alleged attempts to incite the youth into violence against them, stressing that land ownership dispute is not a sufficient reason to instigate criminality.

According to the petition dated August 20, 2015, “Umunya is a small community and according to history, was ceded some portion of land by their neighbour, Nteje, to enable it grow, as was the practice in the past.

“This has contributed immensely to the good relationship between the two towns. Therefore, that some youths from Odumodu Umunya will drag Nteje into their internal and domestic problems is unacceptable.

“We are reliably informed that the traditional ruler of Umunya, Igwe Kris Onyekwuluje, Nnya 1, is misinforming some Odumodu youths and inciting them to violence, and to encroach on our land. The lands at Aguocha and Isiyi, which were referred to in their petition, belong to Nteje. This case has gone to court and Nteje won. The documents are there and the judgment has never been challenged.”

It further disclosed that traditional rulers from the entire Omabala region had visited the land and made some demarcations, which both communities accepted, noting that the people of Nteje retain the right of occupancy “since the land had always belonged to us and never to the people of Odumodu Umunya as stated in their petition.”