— Declares Wanted

By Nwogha Ndubuisi, Abakaliki

The governor of Ebonyi state, Engr David Umahi has declared Ambassador Oluchukwu Paschal wanted, alleging his connection to the renewed killings in Effium autonomous community, Ohaukwu Local Government Area of the state.

Umahi, made it known while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the state weekly security meeting, held at the Old Government House Abakaliki.

The governor alleged that Ambassador Oluchukwu Paschal had sponsored a publication on the Sun Newspaper of 9th April, which according to the governor, triggered fresh killings in the war thorned area.

According to him: “We took a briefing on what is happening in Effium, and we discovered that Effium has been at peace for the past two weeks until one ambassador Paschal Oluchukwu, in sun newspaper of 9th of April released a very wicked allegation against the security agencies and against the government of Ebonyi state.

He added:”And that resulted in fresh killings and we had the stakeholders of Effium/Ezza Effium in our meeting today and our decision was to arrest all of them to commence charges on murder, but after their firm commitment that they will be no killings again, even though we noted that this is about the ten times that they are making such promises but we are of the firm believe that they will keep to thier promises this time around.

“But we have noted that the Effium people and the Ezza Effium people are are willing to return to thier homes and they are willing to embrace peace, but there are still some few elements from among the two sides that go to social media to dish out very wrong information and it escalate tension and the resultant effect is killings.

“We are apealing to security agencies to watch out and apprehend such people.

“We declare this ambassador Oluchukwu Paschal wanted, and we decided that if he doesn’t come to answer, we are to press prosecution charges against him.

“We’ve directed the Commissioner for Internal Security and Information to write to Sun Newspaper to reveal the identity of the man, he should come and defend the write up that resulted fresh killings in Effium, we are determined, within the next two weeks to get the people of Effium back to thier homes” he further said.

Similarly, the governor also frowned at the recent happenings in Ezzillo community in Ishielu Local Government Area of the state, where a Land dispute
was said to led to the deaths of two persons and directed for the arrest of the ward councillor, who according to the governor contributed to the killings