Nigeria-born multiple awards winning literary giant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Saturday posted a video on her Facebook page where she interviewed a fellow indigene of her hometown; Abba, Njikoka in Anambra State whose husband was arrested December, 2019, thereby raising another alarm over alleged continued harassment and intimidation of her kinsmen by some well connected Ukpo men.

[b]In the video, Chimamanda could be seen interviewing a woman who lamented the situation of things in Abba community.

“We came to see you to know exactly what happened. This has been very upsetting to all of us…all we are fighting for is truth and justice,” Chimamanda said to her.

According to the woman who identified herself as Mrs. Umeano, the arrest of her husband, David Umeano and four others, Ichie Obinna Chukwuma, Samuel Okafor, Sylvester Nwafor and Maduka Okoli took place on the 18th of December, 2019 at Umudioka Customary Court after a court hearing on the Ukpo-Abba land dispute.

As could be seen on the video, Chimamanda revealed the details of the arrest of the Abba as narrated by Mrs. Umeano from what her husband told her.

“After the court hearing, at the gate of the court house, they saw SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) men accompanied by Ukpo indigenes standing and waiting for them. So, they ran back into the court house. Some of those who had driven out of the gate, left their cars and ran into the bush while the rest ran back into the court house” Mrs. Umeano said.

“The SARS men chased them into the court house and dragged them out. They ran into the bushes to drag and arrest those who ran into the bush. They arrested five of the men.

“It was also confirmed that the people who helped drag these men were Ukpo indigenes” she added.

Continuing, she said, “There was a magistrate right there in the court and he said there was nothing he could do. The same thing happened in Abuja and nobody did anything so what can I possibly do?” she added.

It was also deduced that the annual town meeting which was usually held in December did not hold as the arrested men are among the community leaders and others were frightened of being arrested as well.

Daily Times could recall that on the 20th of September 2019, an article written by Adichie titled ‘My Hometown Under Siege’ was published in a national daily (not Daily Times), where she narrated the genesis of the dispute which began when Ukpo sued for rights to the disputed land in 1985.

She stated that the hearing was ruled in favour of Ukpo community but the record of the proceedings in the case was said to have disappeared mysteriously thus denying Abba an appeal to the Supreme Court which, in turn, referred the community back to its state court.

According to her, the dispute is still on-going followed by alleged unlawful backlashes, including the removal of Abba’s welcome signboard.

“It happened because the Nigerian police accompanied people at night to commit this illegal act. Witnesses saw them: the police vans, their flashing lights, their guns. And it happened because a Nigerian billionaire, Prince Arthur Eze, is financing a campaign of intimidation in order to win a land dispute”. Adichie had alleged in the September 2019 article.

“As a child I was often skeptical of historical stories in which the homeland of the storyteller was always in the right. And so my natural skepticism made me ask why Prince Arthur Eze would engage in this violent campaign of intimidation, and whether perhaps he was being unfairly maligned. Where was the evidence? How could we be sure that Prince Arthur Eze was indeed responsible?” Adichie questioned in her article.

“Arthur Eze wants to build a university named after him, and Ukpo doesn’t have any land big enough and so he wants to take our land,” her story alleged, quoting a “young man.”

“Today Abba people live in fear. Rumours swirl every day. Somebody says there is a list of Abba people to be arrested. Another says the police are coming from Abuja to arrest the town union members. Another says the community school, partly located on the disputed land, will be completely demolished. Some fearful parents keep their children home from school. When a big car with tinted windows drives through Abba, the people worry. Some men skulk away. Who will be arrested today? Who will be harassed? Who will sleep in a cell tonight?” Adichie wrote in that September 2019 article.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is recognized locally and internationally as an advocate of justice and equality. She was recently honored on the 11th of January 2020 with the first ever Belle van Zuylen Ring – an honorary prize awarded by the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU), Netherlands – for “her contribution to humanity through her literary works and her public engagements which have played huge roles in effecting change and a better understanding of issues such as identity and feminism.”[/b]

While delivering the Class Day speech at Yale University in 2019, the writer admitted that she happens “to have a mild case of a messiah complex and I want to change a small slice of the world..

In 2018, she received the Global Hope Coalition Thought Leadership Award for being an “Everyday Hero”, shaping global conversations concerning feminism, race, and North/South relations.

On September 2019, the ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ author was named by the Duchess of Sussex, Megan Markle as one of British Vogue’s “Force of Change” and during a video interview, when asked what change she’d make in the world if she could, she said “I would wave a magic wand and let the world be a place of real justice”


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