How Hundreds Of People Abandoned Their Homes In Imo, Spent Nights In The Bush Due To Fear Of Police

According to a report by Vanguard, hundreds of the people of Umuohunma, Ezuofoke community of Umunna in Onuimo local government area of Imo state, who abandoned their homes for fear of arrest by the police, have started returning back to their village.

Vanguard learnt yesterday in Owerri, that the apprehension in Umuohunma community was as a result of what some of the villagers, described as indiscriminate arrests of their people by the police, following the alleged murder of one Ulumma Ekwebelem, an 18-year-old girl by her said to be fiance, Chibuzor Alaneme. Ulumma is said to be from Ikpem in Ehime Mbano local government of Imo state. While the story surrounding her death has been discussed within sexuality and friendship.

However, calm has started returning to the troubled community, days after they told Vanguard that the ten persons said to have been earlier arrested by the police, last week, have regained freedom.

While at the time of filing this report, some elders of the affected community were having meetings in view to finding a lasting solution between the parents of the deceased and the village (Umuohunma) where the accused hails from.

Speaking to Vanguard an elder in the village, who begged not to mention his name in the print recounted their experiences, said:

“It is not a good story to tell, since the police came and arrested some of our brothers and sisters they were up to ten in number, many of us because of fear left our homes and we have been sleeping in the bush. some of us slept in uncompleted buildings.

“At a point, our neighbouring villages were not ready to accommodate us because they thought doing that would put them at risk.

“We the men sent our children away and our wives and we decided to be moving around quietly in the village, the reason was that we do not want criminals to take advantage of our absence.”

He added: “The truth is that, the police came on the 10th of April, 2019, the police came as early as 7:15am and succeeded in arresting some of our children. But the good thing now is that they have been released and the next plan is how to ensure peace returns especially between the parents of Ulumma and our people.

“We must say the truth, we are not happy such thing happened and all of us condemned it. And the good thing is that the culprit has been handed over to the police, we want them to do their work very well.”