Skirmishes are normal in human relationship. But why do people go into brutal war? Although, William Penn outlined three causes of war as: to keep, to add, and to recover, there are criticisms that some wars fall outside the categorization. Sometimes, war expresses primordial causes which cannot be reduced to outside manifestation since they are intertwined with long histories of inter-communal hatred.
The incessant war along Ebonyi-Cross Rive border clearly confirms the later assertion. Some people just love to hate. Although, land dispute seems to be the bone of contention, the unceasing hatred has always been reinforced by petty issues. This has meant that the border communities of the two states are always on-and-off war. From Izzi to Abakaliki to Ikwo local government areas, it has been experiences of horror and fortune losses. Season in, season out, people plant their crops without hope that they will reap them; build houses without hope of being buried in their compounds. Flimsy excuses are always invented by war monger to reduce achievements of decades into ruins.
The brutal attack on the people of Azuofia-Edda community in Abakaliki Local Government Area of Ebonyi on the 13th January 2017 by the combined guerilla forces of Ofomana, Ogwurude (Ekori), Ofonama, Okinbogha, Ogamana, Ovurokponu, Okpechi, Ofenagama, Eja, and Ujitum villages making up Osopong I and Osopong II in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State is a case at hand. That an army of over five hundred men attacked a community who was neither at war nor was preparing to wage war gives one an insight of the carnage which was wrecked on Azuofia Idda.
The outcomes were expectedly shocking: lives cut at their prime, dashed hopes and wounded psychology. The three settlements of Ndieze, Izenyi and Minikum in Ophenna village, numbering over forty compounds in Minikum settlement in Odageri village were in matter of hours returned to Stone Age.
Houses were razed, trees felled down, men kidnapped, the buried exhumed, human heads mauled down, cut off and taken as war exploits and trunks of human bodies left for the community. The invaders carried away livestock, farm produce, harvesting those still left in the farmers. Fully equipped with motorized saws, sophisticated weapons, machetes, petrol, the attackers unleashed maximum damage non-resisted and went home like giants refreshed.
The immediate trigger off of communal clashes along this axis is always far removed from real issues. Take the recent case for example; an Okada man alleged to be a cultist from Ovurokponu village in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State was reportedly killed in his own village by rival cult group on the 10th of January 2017 after returning from a trip to Nwida which is Azuoffia Idda, Ebonyi State. The Ovurokponu village blamed the killing on the people of Azuofia-Edda community who despite expressing disbelief over the accusation reached out to the stakeholders of Cross River to ensure maintenance of order while investigation would go on.
That was not the first time the community was accusing their neighbor without facts. Similar incident took place in 2015. In June 2015, a Cross River woman was beheaded in Ofomana village of Obubra and the same community blamed the killing on Ikwo man. However, further investigation by security operatives revealed the killer as Iyala man from Ogoja, Cross River State. The man is said to be cooling off at the moment at Zone 6 of the Nigerian Police Force in Calabar.
If a contestable incident above can cause such an uprising among communities that have been in peace since 1984, then there are more to the latest attack than meet the eyes. That sophisticated weapons were readily deployed few days after the alleged killing of an Okada man points to the preparedness of Osopong people for war. One might want to know why the community was war-ready if nothing were contention.
That brings one to the issue of land dispute along Ebonyi-Cross River border. The same reason, Ukelle community in Yala L. G. A. of Cross River attacked Igbeagu community of Ebonyi State in 2005 is the same Amagu Ikwo has been defending themselves against Adadama people in Abi L. G. A. of Cross River State. The same explains why Osopong 1 and 2 in Obubra L. G. A of Cross River State decided to reduce Azuoffia Idda community of Abakaliki L. G. A. in Ebonyi State to mourning community.
For how long must people along this axis continue to live in fears? Must the meeting between deputy governors of Ebonyi and Cross River states continue to be on conflict resolution? Time for government to act is now.
Previous steps to resolve crisis along the axis had tended towards two solutions. The immediate has always been to deploy military troops along the flashy points. This has proved abortive in quenching guerilla attacks because of repeated compromise by men of the military. The second option like already done now is forcing local political institutions and elites to peace agreement to resume uneasy relationship.
These two readily available options have failed to restore peace for two reasons. First, peace does not work when sincerity of either party or both parties to a dispute is not guaranteed. Secondly, the deployment and peace agreement ought to be steps to the main solution which is border demarcation; unfortunately, the process has always been left mid-way and never followed up.
While fighting may be temporarily stopped, although debatable, by deployment of the military and signing peace accord, such uneasy peace lasts only as long as the troops remain and the military not compromised too.
To save lives threatened by genocide, the federal government must abandon attempts to send relief materials and facilitate effort to create true homelands where these locals can cherish peace of olive tree no matter how small the land may be reduced. Lasting peace can be envisaged when both parties to the war are demographically separated into defensible enclaves.
This conveys the urgency of the federal government to step in with necessary commissions. The National Boundary Commission should initiate action on the resumption of the delineation of the Ebonyi/Cross River interstate boundary. The both states should convey the urgency of the exercise and expedite action to force the federal government in doing the needful.
Thist is not just one of the options but the only option; otherwise, the border communities will continue to train local militia in defence of their borders.