Economic and social activities have been grounded to a halt in Umuobasiukwu Ozuitem community in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State as residents abandoned their homes for fear of arrest by police who swooped on the community following a clash with Fulani herdsmen.

Indigenes of Umuobasiukwu who spoke with journalists at Umuahia said the one-sided mass arrest by the state police command would embolden the herdsmen to launch another attack on the community which is now more vulnerable.

“We don’t just understand why the police should be arresting our people leaving out the Fulani herdsmen who had provoked the clash with our youths,” Okoro Ndukwe, who fled his home and is taking refuge in the capital city of Umuahia, said.


He said his community had in the past been attacked by herdsmen but there appeared to be relative peace during the period President Muhammadu Buhari was on medical vacation but “coincidentally, they (herdsmen) have started attacking us again apparently because the president has come back.”

The clash between the herdsmen and youths of Umuobasiukwu Ozuitem last Sunday had left one person dead with scores injured while crops valued at millions of naira were destroyed.

Secretary General of Umuobasiukwu autonomous community, Chief Uwakwe Mbonu, confirmed that police had invaded the community and arrested no fewer than six persons after the clash with herdsmen.
State police public relations officer (PPRO), Mr. Geoffrey Ogbonna, a confirmed the arrests, saying it was in connection with the death of a herdsman.

But Mbonu disputed the police claim, insisting that the death of a herdsman, if any, had nothing to do with Umuobasiukwu Uzuitem community as nobody was killed in the community despite the huge economic loss inflicted on the community by herdsmen and their cattle.
He told journalists on phone that the Fulani herdsmen had invaded Umuobasiukwu Ozuitem community in the early hours of last Sunday and youths were mobilised to resist the invaders but “to my greatest surprise, the police have come to arrest our people.”

Though the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Leye Oyebade, has assured the people that the situation had been brought under control but the people of Umuobasiukwu Ozuitem are still unsure of what would happen next as such police assurances in the past had not prevented herdsmen attacks on the community.
The CP was said to have visited the troubled community and accessed the extent of damages that occurred during the clash, and urged the warring parties to embrace peace.

He has also said a large committee comprising representatives of the herdsmen, Hausa/ Fulani community, the local community, the state government, security agencies and other stakeholders had been constituted to resolve the problem.

According to him, the peace committee was expected to come out with ideas that would lead to a permanent solution to the frequent clashes between herdsmen and their host communities, not only Umuobasiukwu Ozuitem, but also other communities that had clashed with herdsmen.