Enugu State Police Command said on Friday that normalcy had returned to Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State after a clash on Thursday by youths in two communities in the area.
The command’s spokesman, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu, said that the command had deployed a detachment of mobile policemen and plain cloth detectives to the two communities to apprehend trouble-makers.
Amaraizu revealed that police operatives prevented what would have resulted to “full scale war’’ between Ikolo and Aku communities in Igbo-Etiti.
He said that it was gathered that youths from the two communities had allegedly engaged each other in a conduct likely to cause breach of peace.
Amaraizu said that Ikolo youths destroyed some houses in Aku community and that Aku youths equally destroyed houses in Ikolo.
The spokesman, however, did not give the exact number of houses destroyed during the clash.
“Sources disclosed that the issue revolves around a protracted land dispute between the two communities in Igbo-Etiti.
“But for the timely intervention of the command, led by the Area Commander in Nsukka, Mr Steve Yabanet, and the Divisional Police Officer of Igbo-Etiti, lives would have been lost.
“There was no loss of lives even as the disruption of peace lasted for some hours.’’
Amaraizu said, however, that leaders of the two communities, including youth leaders were currently engaged by the police to ensure lasting peace.
The image maker said that the state’s Commissioner of Police, Mr Mohammed Dan-Malam, had warned youths in the two communities to be law-abiding and never to take laws into their hands as “two wrongs can never make a right’’. (NAN)