From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Council boss of Ado Local Government Area of Benue State, Chief James Oche has threatened to drag Ebonyi State Government to court for inciting and sponsoring Ngbo community in Ohaukwu local government area of Ebonyi State to launch violent attacks on the vulnerable people of Agila community in Benue State.
Oche, in a statement made available to newsmen in Makurdi on Saturday disclosed that the council is already putting every necessary materials together in consultation with its legal team to consider the likelihood of dragging the Ebonyi State Government to court for what he termed sustained falsehood against the people of Agila community.
The chairman regretted that the Ebonyi State government has continued to draw the attention of the general public that Agila people were responsible for the April 12, 2021 attack on Ngbo communities of Ohaukwu Local Government of Ebonyi state.
While describing the development as uncalled for and very inciting, the Ado Council boss noted that the N20 Million given to the Ngbo Vigilante to procure security outfits as named in the press release of the Ebonyi State Government and the sustained accusation that Agila people were responsible for the attack could amount to inciting and empowering of the Ngbo people to attack Agila people.
He therefore called on Nigerians to hold Ebonyi State Government responsible if any Agila person is attacked henceforth.
“The surviving victims of Ngbo recent attack, their family members, the chief security officer of the Ngbo people Leonard Igwe, the Ebonyi State Chapter of the PDP and newspapers that did investigative journalism on the attack all corroborated the truth that, the attack was from Fulani herdsmen and not Agila people.
“I wondered why the Ebonyi State Government was hell bent on accusing my people. This false accusation has caused panic among my people in Agila as most of them have deserted their community for fear of attack and now taken refuge in Igumale and Apa-Agila.
“As I speak we have created an IDPs camps in the local government headquarters with over 3000 IDPs”.
It would be recalled that on the 28th day of April, 2021 the Ebonyi State Government in a press statement after an Emergency State Security Executive Council Meeting accused the Agila people of Ado Local Government of Benue State for engaging the Fulanis to perpetuate the attack of 12th April, 2021 against the Ngbo people.