The Enugu State Police command prevented several members of the Ibagwa-Nike community from celebrating the New Yam Festival.
By Omotayo Olutekunbi
On Sunday, the Enugu State Police command prevented several members of the Ibagwa-Nike community from celebrating the New Yam Festival in the Enugu East local government area of Enugu state.
According to community members who were interviewed, the issue began on Saturday when other cultural events that were planned as preludes to the Sunday festival began. The police then intervened, generating uncertainty in the neighborhood.
On Sunday morning, it was stated that the police deployed tear gas on the community people before switching to the celebrants, dispersing them and taking their canopies to the divisional police station.
Police trucks were parked near the market square, according to our journalist, who was at the scene of the situation, but he declined to comment.
Abubakar Lawal, the state’s commissioner of police, stated that the issue was that certain community members who were conducting a parallel New yam event had a problem with the state’s Criminal and Investigation Department (CID), which the police needed to handle.
However, one of the community’s leaders from the Umuanekeode clan, Mr. Valentine Eke, claimed that the issue was that the community was split between those who supported HRH Igwe Emmanuel Ugwu, the traditional ruler, and his own clan, which believes that the monarch was too authoritarian in his management of the community.
According to Eke, there wouldn’t have been a problem with a simultaneous New yam event in the village if the people lived in harmony with the king.
In spite of an ongoing court injunction, the community’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Chief Iyke Ngwu, accused the Commissioner of Police of utilizing the state police command’s anti-robbery squad to imprison the community’s leaders in order to meet his deal with their Monarch.
“The use of Enugu State police commissioner, Abubakar Lawal, and the divisional police officer in charge of Unity Police Division, one SP Eze by Igwe Emmanuel Ugwu of Ibagwa Nike to stop the entire Umuanaekeodo and the greater Ibagwa Nike community from celebrating their New Yam festival despite judgment and order of the Court of Appeal is an aberration,” Ngwu said.
The monarch, Igwe Emmanuel Ugwu, responded to the incident by stating that there wouldn’t have been a problem if it had been a private feast, but that the community had celebrated New Yam Festival earlier in the year and that the celebrants were responsible for the crisis.
Igwe Ugwu claimed that those who organize communal rival New yam ceremonies are subject to a permanent court order.
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