The Igbo man is noted for his ingenuity. That special gift from God manifestedduring the civil war when the people from the South-east geopolitical zone of the country were involved in the production of many technological war weapon ranging from the dreaded Ogbunigwe, popularized called “Ojukwu bucket” to the building of airstrips and refineries, using local raw materials.
This technological wizardry has not departed from the people. Thus it is not by accident that Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State is called the Japan of Africa as there is nothing that you want constructed or fabricated in the city, you cannot get.
This rear and great gift of creativity are also found in the leatherette sub-sector where shoes, bags, waist belts and allied products made in Aba compare favourably with others in any part of the world.
But not too happy enough, this Igbo man’s ingenuity was recently put into wrong use when the police discovered illegal refineries built and run by the locals in a village in Ukwa West Local Government of Abia State.
Before the carving out of Abia from the old Imo State in 1991, the Ukwa East and Ukwa West local government areas were just one – Ukwa. The area single-handedly gave Abia its status as an oil producing state.
Though Ukwa may be the hen that lays the golden egg for Abia, it has on the other hand remained a problematic child of sorts.
When kidnappers held sway in Abia and Aba in particular, nobody knew that Ugwati in Ukwa West Local Government where Obioma Nwankwo a.k.a Osisikankwo and his second in command in crime, Stone hailed from, was their headquarters. It took the kidnap of the 15 school children which drew wide condemnation and the eventual deployment of soldiers for the world to know that actually the sleepy village of Ugwuati was the base where the man that held Abia and neighbouring states on the jugular hailed and operated from there.
Just as the Augean stable was being cleared and Abia’s battered image beginning to be better again, an ugly incident happened again.
On May 13, the police in Aba got a tip off about the operation of illegal refineries at the sleepy village of Ezendioma in Ukwa West Local Government.
The Aba area commander of the Nigeria police, Rabiu Dayi quickly mobilized his men to the area. On the first day of the operation, which involved a combined team of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), the mobile police unit and the regular police, 40 suspects were arrested, including 148 (50 liters) of jerry cans, six buses stationed at the sites to lift the locally refined petroleum products which were filled in jerry cans to where they would be sold.
On the second day of the raid which was more of a mop up operation and led by Hassan Bala, the Abia State commissioner of police himself, one suspect was arrested, bringing the number of those arrested in connection with the operation of the illegal refineries to 41.
Bala who was alarmed by the magnitude of what he saw inside the forest, directed the Aba Area Commander to invite the traditional ruler of the community of the area to his office in Umuahia for a meeting on how best to stop the illegal business going on in his community.
0 comments:
Post a Comment