The Anambra State Police Command has confirmed the killing of at least five persons on Saturday during the burial at Ebenebe, Awka North Local Government Area of the state.
The state police public relations officer, DSP Ikenga Tochukwu, in a statement made available to InsightnaijaTV in Awka, stated that the act was cult-related.
He said the command had gotten the information ‘about the mayhem unleashed by cultists on rival cultists at the burial of a notorious cultist known as Ozo’. He said the police were not notified about the burial, but on getting the information, the state commissioner of police drafted police tactical teams led by an assistant commissioner of police to the town ‘to protect the people against the rampaging cultists.
According to him, “On-the-spot assessment indicates that not less than five suspected cultists were killed in cold blood. Some of the corpses had been removed by their relations.
“The commissioner of police is miffed at the cold-heartedness of criminal elements in the society who have no regard for the sanctity of lives of their fellow citizens. It must be restated that no one, no matter their grievance, has the right to take the life of another person.
“The perpetrators of this crime will be hunted down until they are brought to justice.”
Earlier reports however put the figures of the dead at twenty. An account of the incident, posted by one Charles Ogbu on his Facebook page, stated that aside from the killings, the corpse of the ‘notorious cultist’ being buried was also desecrated by the alleged cultists.
He wrote, “Today (Saturday) at Ebenebe, Awka North Local Government, Anambra State, suspected cultists invaded a burial ceremony and killed over twenty people before desecrating the corpse of the deceased popularly known as Ozo.
“If Ndigbo do not put their heads together to find out how to salvage Ala-Igbo from the savageries being visited upon her by her internal savages, in a few years to come, ours will be a wasteland.
“The fact we are not raising our voice against this enough is to our collective shame. Conspiracy of silence over evil has never helped anyone. Ala-Igbo is on a speed lane to Golgotha. Living in denial won’t cut it.”
