…Dispossess her of husband’s property
From Chuks Onuoha,
Umuahia.
A 48-year-old widow and mother of seven children, Mrs Ijeoma Nze, a native of Umuaku Isuochi in Amaegbu community of Umunneochi Local Government Area, Abia State has raised the voice of lamentation, appealing to Abia State Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, to correct the great injustice done to her and her children by the executives of the community, who beat and dehumanized her, dragging her naked before the village deity and around the village, ostracized her and then proceeded to repatriate her to her parents’ home.
She also passionately implored the Inspector General of Police to promptly apprehend the clique of community leaders who spearheaded and instigated the gross abuse of her human rights and thereby caused her travail. She urged the national human rights community to come to her aid and secure justice for her and her children from the evil design of some of her late husband’s kinsmen. She particularly appealed to Mrs. Ikpeazu to take a personal interest in her matter.
Nze, who spoke to Sunday Sun amid tears, said that the executives of the community dehumanized her for refusing to abide by their skewed verdict by which they demanded that she must allow one their members to take over her husband’s landed property.
She particularly pointed the finger at Chief Patrick Ejike Enwere, a businessman based in Okigwe, Imo State, who she alleged to be the brain behind her travails. She also accused him of having formed a clique among the community executives to deal with her, adding that he was always on hand to intervene on their behalf whenever they were arrested by the police.
Nze further alleged that Enwere organized some women to accuse her of a crime she did not know anything about, put her through a kangaroo trial, found her guilty, ostracized her and then forcefully dragged her out of the community, naked and took her back to her people in disgrace.
Her words: “I was in my house one day, when they came and dragged me out of the house to the village square, while my children were away, looking for their daily bread. After beating me to submission, they stripped me naked, put palm fronds on me like a common thief, and dragged me around the deity at the village square. All the while, they were flogging me without mercy. They took away my phones, some money and other personal effects I had on me before words got to my children who rushed to rescue me from my tormentors. When I asked them the offence I committed, they refused to tell me. It was after that I learnt that it had to do with my late husband’s landed property, over which they had given verdict that was not acceptable to me and my children and we took the matter to court and won.”
Nze gave further insight into what might have led to her travail, saying that while her husband was alive the brother never contested the ownership of the land. But few years after his death he began to make trouble for the brother’s widow and her children over her mother-in-law’s property, which by tradition belong to her husband, who was the last born of the family.
“By the time my husband died, he did not have any house and we were squatting with one of his relations. So after his death, we started scooping sand to build a small house. My husband’s brother came and said that we should not build on the particular land we wanted to use. The thing is that they did not share their father’s property before my husband died. So they seized that one and now started contesting for my mother-in-law’s property which is the traditional right of my husband,” Nze said.
Continuing her narration, she said: “My husband’s brother, with the support of Chief Enwere, organized the women in the community to send me back to my parents’ house, because I rejected their verdict which said that I should leave that property to him. My children and I took the matter to the magistrate court and we won the case.
“One day, they assembled together and came to my house, to demand that I come out to the village square, saying that I committed abomination and I asked them to tell me the abomination I committed. I said that if they did not tell me, I would not go. They accused me of refusing to accept their verdict and going ahead to stop their member from taking over the land. They stripped me naked after beating me thoroughly.
They paraded me before the village deity and around the village, they carried me head high, singing songs of solidarity, reminiscent of the person who had done evil in the land and were taking me to my parents’ village. I insisted that they should tell me what I had done, but they refused and said that they were taking me back to my parents.
“From there they started dragging me around the square, flogging me like a common criminal. While they were doing all these to me, I don’t know who informed my younger son, who rushed to the place and demanded to know what I did but none of them could utter a word. He engaged them in a scuffle, and with the assistance of other people, he was able to rescue me from them and put me on commercial motorcycle and took me to the police station at Nkwo Agu market where we lodged a complaint on what they had done to me. When some of them were arrested, the same Chief Enwere bailed them out from the police,” Nze said.
But in a swift reaction, Chief Enwere, who listened to all the allegations quietly before answering said he was not involved in any way. Enwere, who spoke to Sunday Sun at his Pego Hotel office, Okigwe, said that he had heard the story before but refused to answer them because he was not involved in any way.
“The reason is that I am from the same village where the incident happened, but since I am not an elected officer of the union, I did not know when the decision to ostracize her and take her to her parents was taken.
“The Igbo have a traditional government that rules over them and so do women in the villages. When anybody commits atrocity, they have a way of punishing such person and what I learnt was that Ijeoma Nze committed atrocity and the people meted out their punishment to her. I was told that she pulled down somebody’s house with her children, which the village people called atrocity and they decided to drive her back to her people,” Enwere said.
He also denied ever trying to be the traditional ruler or vowing to make the autonomous government ungovernable for denying him the chance of becoming a traditional ruler.
He said: “God forbid! I never wanted to be a traditional ruler and my church does not encourage it. It is far from the truth because I have never dreamt of that; in fact if you elect me as a traditional ruler, I will not take it,” Enwere said. Speaking on the matter, Mr Edemie Obiaku, a member of the community, who refused to join the other people in their plot to deal with the widow, got a machete cut on the head as his punishment.
According to him, he saw that what they were doing to the widow was wrong and refused to contribute to the levy imposed by the clique of community executives to cover the cost of bailing out some the people arrested by the police for maltreating the widow.
“They gave me a machete cut on the head and uprooted all the yam seedlings I planted in my farm and left them on the surface of the ground,” Obiaku said. A prominent son of the community, Chief Billy Ekpere Achara, who spoke with Sunday Sun described the incident as man’s inhumanity to man, saying: “What happened to the woman is a very offensive widowhood practice and impunity, and I have witnessed it many times. There are allegations that the person behind the web of this recurring decimal of impunity is Chief Patrick Ejike Enwere, a member of our community.
“When the autonomous community was created about 15 years ago, he aspired to be the traditional ruler and the people put up criteria that anybody who wished to be a traditional ruler must have a minimum of school certificate, which he did not have, and ever since he has sworn to make the community ungovernable.
“Ordinarily, in a community setting, there is a traditional method of conflict resolution; we have Okpu-in-Council, which comprises the traditional ruler and the Ichie. Matters such as land dispute go to these people but Enwere made sure that such dispute does not go to them, instead it goes to lame duck executives he manipulated into position. The President General, Okwudiri Enwere is his cousin, and the executive is just like a family affair and whatever he says is like a command they must carry out.’’
Achara said further that the secretary of the town union executive coveted the land of the widow and the woman and her children refused to oblige him.
This secretary is the half-brother to the widow’s husband. When the executives gave an ill-conceived verdict and gave the land to the secretary, the woman refused to accept the decision and with the help of the children who were struggling to survive, she raised some money and challenged the verdict in court and she won.
“The executives felt that it was an affront that she disobeyed their verdict and sent some ill-informed women who they use to do illegal jobs in the village to try her and find the woman guilty. Our community has enlightened elite town union and one branch chairman resident in the village to handle certain issues. They used the home chairman and the chairman of the women’s wing to report the offense of the widow for going to court against them. They dragged her out from her house, stripped her naked, put palm fronds on her and gave her the beating of her life after which they headed to return her back to her people.
“This kind of punishment was meted out to those who committed murder in the distant past by poisoning and those who committed abomination.
They did this just to get even with the woman. They were already on the highway marching her back to her town when somebody sighted them and alerted the children, who intervened to rescue their mother.”
While she was being so treated, her two sons were framed up on false allegation, detained in the cell at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Umuahia, and left to languish there. They gave the impression that all criminal activities in the village were committed by the woman and her children and that it was the community that was prosecuting them. But when some people intervened, it was discovered to be a lie and the woman’s children were released,” Achara said.
Commenting on the attack on Obiaku, he said: “For this other person sitting here, his offense was that when the matter was at the police, they imposed a levy on every member of the community with which to prosecute the case against the widow and the man said he would not be part of it as he knew that it was injustice. They invaded his house saying that he refused to pay the levy and would be forced to pay fine. They carted away his goods after breaking his head.
‘‘He reported the matter to Zone 9 Police Command and the matter ended the same way. He went to his farm to plant yam and they accosted him there and wanted to cut off his head and in the process destroyed all the yams he planted.
The matter was reported to Umunneochi Police Division and nothing came out of it. What the widow is demanding for is justice for herself and her children. Our governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu and the Inspector General of Police should intervene in this matter.’’
What happened to that widow is inhuman.”