By Peter Duru, Makurdi
THEY may never forget what hit them for a long time to come. It will also be difficult to remove the relics and scars of destruction that followed the mayhem which descended on the communities like a thief in the night on March 13, 2023. Overall, the people of Ijegwe and Ojantele in the Obi and Otukpo local government areas of Benue State have sad tales to tell from the destruction and killings that shook the two communities in quick succession. The cause of the twin tragedy has been traced to a power outage that ordinarily should have been forgotten in a hurry but for an endemic suspicion, enmity and bad blood existing between them over the years.
Although the two neighbouring communities have been co-existing over the years, intermarrying and sharing a common heritage, they nevertheless habour deep-seated distrust and bitterness toward each other. On this very day, when they openly attacked each other with dangerous weapons, killed and destroyed anything on sight, there was a sudden outage, that robbed one of the communities of power for some time. The areas are being supplied with electricity by the Jos Electricity Distribution Company, JEDC, which occasionally suffers hiccups like any other distribution company in Nigeria, resulting in power disruptions for many days and hours in some circumstances.
In the unfortunate circumstance that resulted in several deaths and the destruction of homes and property worth millions of Naira, a heavy rainfall had left many communities without electricity for over three days. The power outage is reported to have infuriated the youths of one of the communities, who suspected sabotage by their neighbours to deny them power supply. Arewa Voice learned that the furious youths took their anger to their neighbours and mayhem broke out in the aftermath of the confrontation between the youths of the two warring communities.
Sources familiar with the crisis told Arewa Voice that some Igede-speaking youths of Ijegwu suspected that Otupko youths had sabotaged the high tension line that supplies power to the Obi and Oju LGAs at a JEDC isolation switch located near the Ijegwu community. It was gathered that when some of the daring Ijegwu youths arrived at the JEDC isolation switch centre to see things for themselves, they were attacked by elements suspected to be from the Ojantele community, which resulted in the death of one person and injury to many others.
Apparently angered by the death and injury to their members, the Ijegwu youths reportedly reinforced their group and went back for a counter-attack, which claimed the lives of two persons and the destruction of many houses in the Otukpo community. The attacks and counterattacks are reported to have escalated into a running battle that now dominates the two hitherto peaceful communities, leading to worsening insecurity and confusion in the past few weeks. Throwing more light on the root cause of the crisis, the Otukpo Regional Manager of JED, Olaniyi Ogunmakinya, told Arewa Voice that what actually happened was traceable to a piece of power control equipment known as an isolator, which the company uses to segment its network if there are challenges on its lines.
“We use Isolator to isolate areas that have problems to allow us to fix those problems while others enjoy power,” the JEDC manager explained. “We have that isolator located towards the end of Otukpo LGA, linking Obi. When it rained a few days ago and some of our lines were affected, we had to isolate the affected areas to enable us to work on the lines. But unfortunately, whenever we do that to repair the lines, the people on the Obi LGA side will not be happy that we are isolating them to repair the lines; they would prefer that everyone is denied power supply instead of isolating them alone before the repairs.
So from what I heard, they allegedly marched to that isolation point to sabotage it. But the youths of the community that would be affected by their action resisted them, which led to the conflict.” Unfortunately, despite the intervention of stakeholders and people of good will, the attacks and killings on both sides of the warring communities have persisted, sparking outrage.
Lamenting the carnage, the Igede and Idoma communities resident in Lagos State expressed sadness over the bloody clashes. In a statement jointly signed by the Ad’Igede of Lagos, Dr. Francis Ogbu, and the Chairman of the Idoma Youth Group, Engr. Edwin Ogbole, they strongly condemned what they termed a primitive, lawless act. “To say the least, we are perplexed by the destruction of lives and property in the most horrifying manner over an issue that could have been resolved by the Jos Electricity Distribution Company and community leaders from both sides. It is baffling that the Igede people in Obi LGA and their Idoma brothers in Otukpo LGA could resort to brutal attack on one another over a misunderstanding on electricity supply.”
The lawmaker representing the district in the National Assembly, Senator Abba Moro, has, however, pleaded with the warring communities to sheathe their swords and embrace peace. While describing the incident as unfortunate, Senator Moro asked the warring communities to lay down their arms, as the destruction of lives and property was alien to the culture of the people and would not advance the course of progress and development. The lawmaker promised to undertake the restoration of electricity in the communities as soon as practicable. He assured that officials of JED would be mobilised immediately to assess the extent of damage. In their separate remarks, the leaders and stakeholders of the communities resolved to calm frayed nerves and stop the bloody fight.
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