Cultism: Seven Injured by Cultists in Obosi,Anambra

 Atleast no fewer than seven persons
sustained injuries of different kind and level
yesterday at Obosi community in Idemili
North Local Government of Anambra
state when some suspected cultists
attacked different parts of the
community.
The cultists, according to eye-witnesses,
had been on rampage in the area for about a
week now without attacking any one until
yesterday when they allegedly assailed
members of Obosi Land Management
Council, OLMC.
According to the source, one of the inured
persons whose name was given as Benjamin
Okonkwo who was said to be living with
only one functional kidney, is now at the
intensive care unit of a nearby hospital,
following a gun shot injury he sustained
from the rampaging cultists.
Three other victims, Onochie Tagbo,
Chairman of Isiowulu-Obosi branch of the
OLMC nearly had his right hand cut off by
the attackers who used machete on him,
while Ebuka Ichu and Chukwudi Ibeme
sustained injuries and had their motorcycles
shattered.
Speaking to newsmen at Obosi town hall,
Ibeme noted that the attackers swooped on
him at Eke-Obosi market square between 9
a.m. and 10 a.m. and attacked him, while
Prince Emeka Orizu, Chairman of Littlewood
Estate, Obosi, said he barely managed to
escape from the hands of the suspects
when they invaded his office in the morning
and he ran upstairs, locking up his staircase
and watching them from afar.
Orizu said he could identify some of them
as the same group who invades his family
house during his absence sometime last
year and set his house ablaze which
resulted in his mother suffocating to death
on the process.
The Divisional Police Officer, DPO at Obosi,
CSP Musa who addressed the victims and
other members of OLMC, at Obosi town hall,
said he was aware of a lingering communal
crisis in the area and urged them to remain
calm as according to him, he would inform
the police authorities accordingly.
Speaking to newsmen Mr. Chinedu Okafor,
Vice Chairman of OLMS, Ime Obi Zone, also
accused two prominent persons from the
area of sponsoring the cultists, adding that
their grouse was that they (victims) did not
support them to dethrone their monarch and
also resell lands already acquired by some
persons else but who could not develop
their lands.
The traditional ruler of Obosi, Igwe
Chidubem Iweka, confirmed to newsmen on
phone that the cultists were being
sponsored by a drug baron and a retire
police officer from the area who are hell
bent on grabbing and selling communal land
for their selfish interest.
The monarch lamented that the attackers
could not wait for the state government to
release the white paper from the panel of
inquiry set up by the government on Obosi
communal crisis which sat on weekly basis
for five months (November 2015 to March
2016).
He therefore called on the government to
release the white paper and find a lasting
solution to the crisis before more lives and
properties are lost and the government is expected to answer quickly to such issue.