From Okey Sampson, Aba
AS nine natives of Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State massacred by Fulani herdsmen on April 25 were buried over the weekend, a pan Igbo socio-political group, Association of South East Town Unions (ASETU) has demanded the Federal Government bring perpetrators to justice.
This was even as the group said it is rejecting any plan by the federal government to establish grazing reserves anywhere in the South East. ASETU said the people have little or no land forfarming.
The group, which made its feelings known in a communiqué issue after an expanded national executive council meeting in Aba, Abia State and signed by the Chairman, Chief Emeka Diwe as well as presidents and secretaries of the five South East states Town Unions condemned the recent invasion of Nimbo community by people it described as “rampaging nomads,” and the gruesomely murder of the natives in their own land.
“As if invasion of communities in Igboland and destroying their crops were not enough, our people were killed in large numbers and their wives and daughters brazenly raped by the rampaging Fulani herdsmen.
“Our concern is that despite the fact that the federal government directed security agencies to take decisive action against the rampaging herdsmen, nothing concrete seems to have been done to check the excesses of the warring herdsmen as to forestall our people from being compelled to defend themselves in their own way.”
ASETU urged the federal government to hasten the trial of suspected herdsmen that have been arrested.
The group commended Governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for “his wisdom in handling the situation in the state with maturity” which, it said, averted reprisal attacks that could have led to national crises of unimaginable dimensions and consequences
ASETU however said it was rejecting any proposal by the Federal Government to establish grazing reserves anywhere in the South East.
“Cattle rearing is private business. Since this is so, it will be illogical for government to thinker with any legislation that we will surrender lands in the South East as grazing fields to herdsmen; more so, when natives of the area have little land for farming.