Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State has vowed to implement the recommendations of the Panel of Inquiry into the civil disturbances in Okojo Ngwo in Udi Local Government Area of the state.
Speaking during the presentation of the report of the panel on Tuesday in Enugu, Ugwuanyi. said the state government must ensure that justice to all the people involved in the crisis.
He said that government would not tolerate a situation where people took laws into their hands by cutting short the lives of others.
The governor said that the state regretted the unfortunate incident where one Ejimofor Ozongwu, a legal practitioner and Secretary of Adada State Creation Movement was murdered.
Ugwuanyi said that inaugurated the panel to unravel the remote and immediate causes of the incident with a view to forestalling future occurrence.
“I am grateful for the way you discharged your duties and I assure that government will promptly implement all your recommendations,” Ugwuanyi said.
Earlier, the Chairman of the panel, Justice Frederick Obieze (rtd), attributed the incident to abandonment of a 1943 declaration between members of the community and some government departments.
Obieze said that the community was annexed with a vast area of grassland which attracted some government agencies that encroached into the communal land.
“To forestall further encroachment, the elders in 1943 had an agreement which declared that the Ani Agu land was that of Okojo and some indigenes later settled there at the risk of their lives.
“The declaration was lost during the civil war but was recited in 1972 after a crisis over the same land,” he said.
Obieze said that some interest groups in the community had flouted many times the declaration meant to guide land administration in the community.
He also blamed the crisis on the abandonment of a government white paper, following a panel of inquiry of inquiry of 1992.
“If our recommendations are accepted, we believe there will be peace in that community,” Obieze said. (NAN)
