Commissioner’s brother shot dead in Ebonyi

The police have confirmed the incident.

The Police Command in Ebonyi State has confirmed the killing of Christopher Igwe, the younger brother of Uchenna Igwe, the commissioner for local government and chieftaincy matters, by suspected armed robbers.

Joshua Ukandu, the command’s spokesperson, confirmed the incident to the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Abakaliki, the state capital.

Mr Ukandu, a superintendent of police, said that the incident occurred around the Ishieke axis in Ebonyi Local Government Area at about 10 p.m. on Monday night.

“Yes, the incident occurred on Monday night at about 10 p.m. along the Ishieke area.

“The armed robbers, after operations at a cooking gas selling store, began to shoot, and, unfortunately, the brother of the commissioner was shot dead,” he said.

Mr Ukandu said the command had already launched an investigation into the matter for the possible arrest of the hoodlums.

He, therefore, urged residents to provide useful information that could lead to the arrest of the perpetrators of the crime.

Decades of killing over land disputes

Ebonyi has a history of killings that are associated with land disputes among communities, with some of them going on for decades.

A middle-aged man, Dick Nnachi, in Oso-Edda, Edda Local Government Area of the state, was beheaded on 28 August.

The Oso-Edda and Amasiri communities in Afikpo Local Government Area have been engaged in a long-standing communal conflict over land ownership.

In April this year, four people were killed in a renewed land dispute between the people of Ndukwe Community, Amasiri in Afikpo and the neighbouring Okporojo in Osso Edda.

Houses and properties worth millions were destroyed in the hostilities in the decade-long crisis between the two communities.

PREMIUM TIMES conducted a detailed investigation in 2022 to trace how an ancient conflict led to the displacement of an entire community from their ancestral land in Ebonyi.