By Chris Nwedo
As Akamanato reflectively and respectfully implores Ifite to really support the efforts in which it is the ultimate beneficiary, it implores the prominent sons and daughters to avoid standing by. No time is late for the great stars of Akamanato to brighten the constellations of these efforts to wipe tears of oppression and deprivations from the kinsmen.
The occasion, Nteje Mass Return, provided boundless opportunities to let Nteje people particularly those in diaspora know the efforts of Akamanato and Ifite so far in surviving many calamitous violence that enveloped them. The word calamitous may sound deeply negative, but it is significantly appropriate in the description of the experiences of unprecedented violence that resulted in deaths and wild destruction of properties specifically in Akamanato Ifite Nteje. The village was in the real sense destabilised and the communities sacked by all manners of armed people. Akamanato was deserted, literally, by everyone to escape the active regime of terror and bloodshed by land grabbers using insensitive Akamanato and Ifite people.
The origin of the crisis in Akamanato
The village farm lands were invaded by armies of unprincipled investors. The corrupt investors were sealing undone deals from Area Boys and faceless conspirators. There were attempts at clear conquest of due processes in the regulations concerning lands in Nteje, Akamanato and Anambra state, yet investors proceeded. The acres of the stolen farms were ostensibly given away at an incredible low cost. Like vultures around carcass, the obviously unscrupulous investors were incalculably falling over themselves. The whole deals were chaotic, imprudent and therefore unsustainable. There were valid objections and vigorous reactions against the illegalities but the ‘blindfolded’ investors seemed to cared less.
The havoc was real, the story was unpleasant, pitiable and hardly believable that it actually happened in Akamanato. Approximately since 2014 there was a real war fought at all fronts with lethal weapons and terror tactics to drive Akamanato villagers away from the communities as the farm lands were auctioned by all sorts of felons. The violence, the terrorism and the active efforts to drive everyone away from the communities were calculations to intimate and force oppositions to the monumental scandals to capitulate. As monetary inducements to compromise and break determined opposition to the abominable misconducts failed resoundingly, wilful violence and unscrupulous Police actions were the order of the days.
This is a brief update of how Akamanato and Ifite lived and triumphed over varied elements of negative forces that attempted to envelop them. The invasions of the farms started in absolute secrecy until they became uncontrollably revealed. The revelation came with modest efforts to dissuade the fraud. The efforts failed with the insensitive boldness of those behind the outrageous wrongdoing. Violence was introduced to stem the progressively growing oppositions of those who denounced the absolutely illegal procedures in the land deals. The violence was accelerated and expanded because there were no interventions whatsoever from prominent Akamanato and or Ifite villagers. This lack of interventions also accounted for the reasons why the villagers suffered terribly. The land grabbers, the criminals and the backers optimised the opportunities provided them by the absence of people of enormous influences. There were clear evidences of impunity on the parts of those auctioning the land and the Nigerian Police providing comprehensive protections and tools of intimidation to those involved in the scandals.
In line with the sense of absolute controls, Akamanato communities, particularly, were daily invaded by armed people. Some of these armed invaders often dressed in Police or Military attires while some are boldly on their own. However they dressed, the only unchanging objectives were to destabilise through violent tactics and extinguish rivals against evil in the land. It was the heart- breaking experiences of abandonment by the great men from Akamanato that challenged and charged ordinary villagers with great courage and righteous anger against the evil in the land.
Like David, Akamanato, rose from self-pity aware that the battle was his alone. He encouraged himself, mobilised his catapults of determinations and matched-on in fury against the ‘Goliaths’. Akamanato has no guns, no god-fathers, no funds but he has the fearlessness and the fate of a just fighter. He refused to be scared by the threats and terrors of those who considered him effeminate, bold less, tactless and pauperised. The courts’ doors were closed against him and the ones that accommodated him gave him no justice because he has no money to pay, and no influences to show. The more he gathered his slings, the more the ‘Goliaths’ barked, threatened, invaded and scattered his plans but he remained undiscouraged and unconditionally focused.
The United Brothers are unstoppable
The cardinal principle of the Akamanato’s struggle was that ‘no one fights successfully for what is rightly his with an incomplete commitment’. In the struggle, the two hands were engaged. The commitment was full, the fight was intense and the slings were loaded. The new entrants into the fight, the Akamanato United Brothers came charged, seemed unstoppable and well-armed with the convictions that the chicken was approximately cooked. The intense commitments leveled the mountains of fears and lacks. The converts and the new champions in the struggle spittle and continued to spit magical fires enveloping everyone with feverish search for what to do to help. No one has anything he cannot give for the sake of success in the fight for the survival of Akamanato. The list of those who comforted Akamanato in the worse moment of its history, in the calamity that visited it is long. The United Brothers on whose shoulders the struggle now hanged jumped into the ring with raw passion and committed attention. The leadership was impenetrable, the zeal to deliver Ifite from the gripping cold hands of the mindless was supreme, the strides were frenzied, the vision was clear and the mission attainable. Infinite gratitude goes to the Chairman, Vice Chairman and the brain boxes of the efforts.
Akamanato and indeed Ifite were saved from the calamities by the heroes-of-the-father-land, the relative ordinary people who choose honour and despised the evil inducements to be compromised. The saviours of the fatherland were not the Mighty that cared less but the Strong that cared more. Today, Akamanato stands tall and proud gratitude to the ‘Revolution’ of the Patriots. Let no history give credit yet to the High Chiefs, Professors and Doctors from Akamanato for the victory against the ‘Goliaths’ that attempted to swallow the people and the land but to the ordinary people who jumped into ring sacrificing everything.
It is a story of success that today the villagers are, figuratively speaking, waving flags on the graves their oppressors. To cruise to this point of resounding successes, bloods of the innocent were shed, lives of some Akamanato patriots were lost, houses were burnt, properties were lost but there were overt decisions to refuse the loss of the determinations to struggle to the end and win over the evil.
More needs to be done
The struggle has been going on, it has just started, it is still going on eager to inflame with great sounds of explosions. The work has just started Akamanato, Ifite and Nteje is challenged for productive efforts to create a society free from the darkness of evil, free from insensitive actions that destabilise the communities and free from evil tendencies that are endlessly detrimental.
The continuously ongoing demolition of illegal structures in Akamanato and Ifite farmlands were the efforts of the state government to re-invalidate the illegal acquisitions of the farms and completely return the farms to owners. The state government inspired by the realisation that the processes followed by those involved in the land were fraudulent is determined to clear the farms of the mess and deal with the traitors. Akamanato village through United Brothers has been the originator and the sponsor of the efforts. It is funding the demolition the state government is doing and Akamanato people have also continued to suffer brutal attacks from the land thieves.
This appraisal is deficient without references to vigorous efforts of the Nteje government under the leadership of Dr. Nnamdi Ilodiuba. The President General deserves accolades for the efforts to drive Nteje into a new phase that inspires commitment to positive values of a civilised society, a progressive Nteje. May these efforts lead to a secure, attractive and liveable Nteje and a town supportive self and collective development. It important to invite the lovers of the town to demonstrate commitment to the President General’s efforts. Dr. Ilodiuba is setting a new standard for the subsequent leaders of Nteje, he is redefining the roles and making them depended on productive action. Akamanato applauds the president and pledges continuous support.
As Akamanato reflectively and respectfully implores Ifite to really support the efforts in which it is the ultimate beneficiary, it implores the prominent sons and daughters to avoid standing by. No time is late for the great stars of Akamanato to brighten the constellations of these efforts to wipe tears of oppression and deprivations from the kinsmen. We need to recognise this obligation that we are bound to be together in these enterprises to save fatherland. As prominent as you are, as great as you are, you have not responded to the deafening cries for help from your family at home. The passionate plea is: reach out to demonstrative your sensitivity, the care and the concern.
Every effort is in vain as far as the reclaiming of the land is concerned if Anambra State Governor, His Excellency Prof. Charles Soludo did not step in. We are profoundly grateful to God Almighty for inspiring the governor, for giving him the wisdom, the sensitivity to the plights of the deplorable and the interest to serve Ndi Anambra with substantial devotion. Like the biblical Moses, Prof Soludo beheld with profound pity the oppression, the deprivations of Ndi Ifite Nteje and consoled them by sending fraudulent developers home empty handed. The Governor saw the crowds of the heavily oppressed and dispossessed in Akamanato and felt sorry for what they have endured for years. Akamanato communities were harassed, destabilised and dispersed like sheep without a shepherd and he intervened and scattered the land grabbers and the proxies.
