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The Eziowelle Community in Idemili North Council Area of Anambra State has fallen out with its leader, a development that is causing disaffection in the town.
A crowd comprising men, women and youths from the community, carried placards and stormed the Government House, Awka, yesterday, to protest against “bad leadership” in the community and to seek the intervention of Governor Willie Obiano.
Some of the placards read “Your Excellency, Save Eziowelle from Anarchy”, “Eziowelle Traditional Rulers Don’t Conduct Elections”, “Free Eziowelle Now”, “We Say No To Tyranny”, “Eziowelle Youths Reject Bad Leadership”, and “Eziowelle Women Are Tired Of Tyrants”.
Addressing the governor, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Chieftaincy and Town Unions Matters, Vera Okonkwo, spokesman of the community, Anthony Chigbo, warned that failure of the government to intervene urgently might result in unforeseen situations.
Chigbo traced the crises to Certificate of Recognition issued to Titus Akpudo as the president-general of Eziowelle Improvement Union (EIU), after the June 30, 2018 election, which he described as a sham.
Observing that Akpudo does not enjoy majority support of the people, in addition to having failed to perform his duties as the town union’s leader, Chigbo called on the state government to withdraw the certificate issued to him and conduct an election of a caretaker committee for the town.
He accused Akpudo of imposing obnoxious fees and levies, extortion, use of personal account to receive money and failure to render account of his stewardship to the people after three years in office.
“You cannot be a leader without a follower. He became a terror to his people. We have lost our community and we want our community back. We want to tell the governor that we don’t want war. Governor Obiano should set up a caretaker committee for us,” he said.
Corroborating him, a community leader, Chief Felix Okafor, and the youth chairman, Ugochukwu Asikwo, also dismissed the election that threw up Akpudo up to serve another term, stressing that he was yet to account for his stewardship in his first ensure.
According to them, the constitution allows three major branches of Lagos, Onitsha and Kano to intervene and provide process for the town union in case of crisis, urging government to do the needful and conduct election for caretaker committee leadership.
While alleging compromise by some elite and intimidation on some poor and indigent members of the community, they called on the state government to intervene before the crisis degenerates into full-blown clash between opposing groups.