It is now four months since the gruesome murder of Messrs Kelechi Okalla and Chinenye Onyenekwe tripped the balance of the Umeshi community, and their corpses are still soaking ice in the cold slab of a mortuary in Imo State.

Their burial is not in sight because the circumstances of their deaths are inevitably tied to the running crisis that has turned the community in the Ideato South Local Government Area into an expanded battle ground for more than two years now. Kelechi, 21 and Chinenye, 23 had last November 30, become the tragic human face of fratricidal crisis that has pitted the entire community against one of its own daughters, a former chairman of the Ideato South Local Government Area.

The dreams and hopes of the young men and the joy of their parents were prematurely cut short when they were felled by bullets fired by gunmen in the community. Sir Godwin Okalla, a retired secondary school principal and Kelechi’s father, told Daily Sun that his murdered son, who was on a motor-cycle driven by the late Chinenye when they were overtaken by a cruel fate was yet another victim of the a killer squad within the town as Kunguma Boys.

Until his death, Kelechi, who had just been offered admission to study accounting at the Imo State University was awaiting the commencement of the session. Okalla’s position was shared by Chinenye’s mother, Mrs. Paulina Onyenokwe, a widow and petty trader. Her deceased son was until his death a motor-cyclist based in Orlu. The father of two was said to have visited Umueshi that day to see his mum, not knowing what fate awaited him.
Mrs. Onyenokwe’s sorrow was only compounded a forth night ago when the second of Chinenye’s two kids died.

Like Okalla, Onyenokwe has insisted that burying the two young men without properly determining the cause of their death would amount to patting their killers at the back. “We feel that burying them would mean burying the cause of justice. No autopsy has been conducted, and since their death, those who killed them have left the community, protected by the police.
“If they are innocent, let them come back to Umueshi,” Okalla, a knight of the Catholic Church said.
President-General of the Umueshi Town Union, Sir Festus Ukeje, said the case of the community was made more worrisome by “the continued use of men of the Nigeria Police Force to unlawfully detain and torture innocent citizens, and pervert the cause of justice.”

He said the militia group known as the Kunguma Boys was formed by the former local government chairman early in 2006 with an operational base in Umueshi.
Although the community had alerted all relevant state organs, including the army, the police, the State Security Service and the other relevant agencies, Ukeje said no response came. “Consequently, an emboldened militia … instituted a parallel government of terror and foisted it on the community,” Ukeje said.

Reeling out a litany of atrocities committee by the Kunguma Boys, Ukeje said besides the murder of Kelechi and Chinenye on November 30, 2007, the militia had on May 21, same year ransacked and destroyed the palace of the traditional ruler of the community. One Mr. Vincent Ukeje was said to have been earlier maimed by the rampaging terrorists the previous day. According to the community leader, the Kunguma Boys had killed one Mr. Declan Ihezie on May 5, 2007 and invaded the venue of a general meeting of the community where issues relating to how to respond to the problem posed by the group were being discussed. He alleged that on February 3, 2007, the group had arrested two other members of the community identified as Celestine Uzoanakwe and Augustine Nwosu, stripped them naked, robbed them and ‘imprisoned’ them at the residence of their mentor and financier.

Furthermore, Ukeje said, the Kunguma Boys have during this period, abducted several other persons whom they beat to the state of coma, including a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in Umueshi. “On January 13, 2007, the militia razed down a poultry premises owned by Ofoma Farms Limited” because the promoter of the company voiced opinions that differed from those of their financier. Ukeje’s car was also said to have been burnt the same day. According to leaders of the community, the town stood on its toes as the militia went on an orgy of unrestrained rampage, burning, killing and maiming.

Ukeje cited the example of one Mrs. Mabel Duru, who alongside her daughter was shot in her residence last November 25, for failing to attend a meeting summoned by the founder of the militia. On the wake of the gruesome murder of Kelechi and Chinenye, Ukeje explained, Imo State police commissioner had promptly responded and declared the former council boss and the Kunguma Boys who were implicated in the murder wanted.

The community had also petitioned the Inspector-General of Police who, according to him, had quickly commissioned a team from the Force Criminal Investigation Department who visited the community for preliminary investigations. “However, in a most surreptitious manner, the accused person in the petition…smuggled in another petition, which was assigned to the C.P. Monitoring Unit, constituting a parallel case in order to frustrate the course of justice,” Ukeje said, adding that to the chargin of the people, the police had recently invited the leadership of the community to Abuja in the presence of the accused persons earlier declared wanted by the police. What is playing out now is that the accused person has become the accuser, enjoying police protection at the highest level instead of facing prosecution. According to him, the people of Umueshi are concerned that “the current shielding by the police has now emboldened the accused who was alleged to have boasted that she could buy over the entire police, even if she kills the whole community.

“Prior to the recent murder of the two youths, the community reported to the police, the EFCC, the Nigerian Army and the SSS, but the administrators of these organisations refused to act on the side of the law and justice. The Nigeria Police releases any member of the militia arrested by the community and submitted to its custody. The Police torture and incarcerate without charges or trial of many member of the community on the orders of the woman,” he lamented.

Calling for the immediate arrest of the accused persons and their prosecution, Ukeje said the state could not afford to remain comatose in the face of immediate and grave threats to lives of innocent citizens while the tolls continued to mount.
He called for a thorough investigation of what he described as the terrorist activities of the ex-council boss and her boys “and uncover to what extent public funds have been used to sponsor these criminal activities.” He also wants the police officers who had been used to harass, arrest, kidnap, detain, torture and intimidate members of the community and their leaders to be brought to book.