By EMMANUEL UNA
EREI community in Biase Local Government Area, Cross River State, and their neighboring Eddah in Afikpo Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, have resolved to fight no more after five decades of gruesome battle over a border palm estate that consumed lives and caused destruction of property.
Soldiers have been deployed around the boundary between the two communities and anyone found to be threatening the peace would be arrested and made to face the law.
NDV learnt that the chairman, Biase Local Government Area, Mrs. Ada Charles Egwu, who is behind the peace treaty, had, since her assumption of office in 2020, engaged the warring parties on the need for peace.
Her efforts paid off when the traditional rulers, elders, opinion leaders of both communities, met on May 27 to agree on cessation of further hostilities.
At the peace meeting held at Abi Local Government Council Secretariat, Itigidi, the feuding parties agreed to sheathe their swords and live in peace and unity.
Speaking on the occasion, Mrs. Egwu said:
“Every year, we experience needless bloodshed and destruction of property on both sides as people from Eda and their Erei neighbours fight over palm estate located along their common border, but with the peace we have attained now, that must stop henceforth.
“Erei and Eddah have a common ancestry and the fact that Erei is in Cross River and Edda in Ebonyi State is for administrative continence and not for enmity or for one community to spill the blood of the other.
“Governor Ayade is very passionate about peace between Eda and Erei and I know the governor of Ebonyi too is a man of peace, therefore, let us maintain the peace.
“I thank the Edda community for honoring the invitation and I plead with the communities to continue to embrace peace, as there cannot be development where there is no peace,” she added.
Also speaking, member representing Biase State Constituency in the Cross River State House of Assembly, Mr. Ogbor Ogbor, underlined the need for peaceful coexistence between the two communities.
We’ve resolved to live in harmony — His Highness Enyi
Leader of the Edda community, His Highness, Eze Ogo Charles Enyi, said: “We have agreed to live in peace and harmony with our Erei neighbours and anyone who tries to drag us to violence will be treated as a war monger and handed over to the soldiers to deal with.”
Paramount ruler of Biase Local Government Area, Onun Nicholas Odim, who was in attendance, pleaded with the two communities to accept peace. (Vanguard)
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