Two Delta communities of Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku both in Aniocha South Local Government Area of the State have described as false and totally misleading, a story by SAHARA REPORTERS on Wednesday 2nd July, 2025 which alleged that the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Monitoring Team was bribed by some indigenes of the communities who were arrested by agents of the Ogwashi-Uku Monarch Obi Ifechukwude Okonjo and his brother Prince Onyema Okonjo, over spurious allegation of illegal possession of fire arms.

The online publication had reported that the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Monitoring Unit, Abuja, received several millions of naira in order to stop an ongoing criminal trial of some firearm suspects currently charged before the Federal High Court in Asaba, the Delta State capital.

The so-called suspects mentioned in the publication included Dr. Emmanuel Brasca Ifeadi, a retired Deputy Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Chief Linus Osemene (the Oguluzame of Ubulu-Okiti), Mr. Japhet Biose and Mr Chijioke Agafiene.

However, the communities posited that SAHARA REPORTERS has been grossly misinformed by the Ogwashi-Uku monarch who used his privileged position to buy over the former Assistant Inspector of General of Police (AIG) of Zone 5 Headquarters, Benin-City, Mr. Arungwa (now retired), who consequently abused his office through unfair hearing and incessant harassment of the alleged suspects, whose community lands were forcefully taken over by the monarch and his agents, most of the time championed by one Mrs Aisha Halimatu Okoye.

In the rejoinder to the SAHARA REPORTERS’ story, the communities decried the attempt to demonize the IGP Monitoring Team simply because the Monitoring Unit took over the matter when the Force Headquarters got better information of how the Ogwashi-Uku Monarch was allegedly using officers of Zone 5 headquarters to execute a spurious court order to which Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku communities are not party to.
The Monitoring Team had embarked on a transparent investigation following accusation against the former AIG who failed to do diligent investigation after he had got his office compromised.

According to the rejoinder, no bribe of N30million was given by the suspects nor their communities to the IGP Monitoring team as erroneously squealed to SAHARA REPORTERS by its informants as the so-called suspects, (all of whom were civil servants) did not have such amount for bribery and neither did they give any money to the Monitoring Team as alleged.

Giving background of the entire scenario, the rejoinder said “some time ago in 2023, the Ubulu-Okiti community noticed some massive encroachment into its land territory with bulldozers by some people who were described and identified as land grabbers. They had come ferociously destroying people’s farm lands and cash crops with bulldozers, with the obvious intent to forcefully occupy the lands.
In the process, some Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku farmers were beaten and chased away with threats never to step on the lands again.

On investigation, it was discovered that some members of Utomi family of Isah-Ogwashi had sold the land to some unknown land developers. Over time, in the course of the conflict that ensued which almost led to bloodbath as Ubulu-Okiti indigenes were attacked in their farm lands by the land grabbers and their agents, some chiefs from Ogwashi-Uku reportedly representing the Ogwashi-Uku monarch, His Royal Majesty Obi Ifechukwude Anishi Okonjo approached Ubulu-Okiti leaders for settlement. After series of meetings, confrontations and interventions, the situation simmered down.

Sadly, around August, 2024 the land grabbers resumed their activities within the Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku axis. They engaged in massive destruction of economic trees, cash crops but were physically challenged at some point following which the grabbers beat a retreat. By end of November, 2024 and early days of December, 2024 the land grabbers reinforced their activities by becoming more violent as they came with bulldozers, armed thugs in great numbers. Specifically, they concentrated more in destroying people’s economic trees like palm trees, oranges, Agbonor, Kola nut and cash crops like Cassava, Corn, Tomatoes, Yams and other agricultural properties.

Specifically at Aniagbala axis, the armed thugs and their sponsors destroyed no fewer than 6,000 growing palm trees, about 100 beehives and some high-tech farm equipment used for drip irrigation farming all belonging to an investment banker, Mr. Luke Ejiofor from Ubulu-Uku.

When confronted, the Ogwashi-Uku monarch and his brother, Prince Onyema Okonjo claimed that the entire land of Ubulu-Okiti, Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku belonged to the Ogwashi-Uku kingdom. In their argument, they relied on a Consent Judgment they have been parading as a court judgment which purportedly ceded an entire 686.70 hectares of land to them, whereas, the Consent Judgement was strictly focused on Edo Ogwashi, and between Ogwashi-Uku and their Ashi Industries Limited partners; which had nothing to do with Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku communities.

On several occasions, the invaders would audaciously make it known that the lands in question belong to Ogwashi-Uku and were undeterred in doing the bidding of their monarch at whose behest they were launching their attacks.

During their second invasion in December, the land grabbers were accompanied by armed policemen from Zone 5 headquarters, Benin City. Sequel to this, the invaders came with bulldozers, armed policemen and thugs exactly on 16th December, 2024 during which Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku Youths engaged them frontally in order to chase them away from their lands. Some of the invaders were captured and taken for questioning. Some of them claimed to be surveyors engaged by the Obi of Ogwashi-Uku to survey the lands, while some others were engaged as labour hands to cut the survey lines.

After some interrogation and extraction of commitment that they would not return to the lands again, the captured invaders were allowed to leave totally unharmed. Surprisingly, a few days later some policemen from Zone 5 Police Headquarters Benin-City stormed Ubulu-Okiti at mid-night and whisked away some notable indigenes among whom was Chief Linus Osemene (the Oguluzame of Ubulu-Okiti) and took them to Benin-city where they were incarcerated for nine days on the orders of the former Assistant Inspector General of Police who claimed to be acting on a directive from the Inspector General of Police. Mr. Japhet Biose who was arrested and detained along with Chief Linus Osemene, is a major member of the local vigilante group at Ubulu-Okiti. It is relevant to mention at this juncture that the two single barrel guns recovered from his house at midnight were spoilt guns officially assigned to the Vigilante group as the group is recognized by the Delta State Government. The guns are not Biose’s personal property but property of the community vigilante which has permission to bear low intensity firearms.

Regrettably, the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 5 Benin-City, at that time, Mr. Arungwa seemed to have been deeply compromised as he was not ready to give fair hearing to those arrested and detained, nor to the elders of Ubulu-Okiti who came to the Zonal office to give details about the land issue which led to the Communal conflict.

Following Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku communities suspicion that the AIG Zone 5 (now retired) had been heavily compromised, considering his obvious one-sided investigation pattern of the communal conflict, the Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku community decided to apply to the Inspector General of Police Monitoring Unit to take over the case.

The team from the IGP Monitoring Unit was headed by SP Aminu Sokoto who went round and gathered statements from key people in the embattled communities. But information reached us that the former AIG Zone 5 refused to grant him access to documents relating to the conflict. We therefore appealed to the IGP to call for the report of the IGP Monitoring Unit to enable him understand what actually happened; as some of our people whose lands were invaded were interviewed with photographs taken during the IGP Monitoring team’s visit to Delta State.

*THE CONTROVERSIAL* *LANDS*

Historically; Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku communities are traditionally separate kingdoms that do not share boundaries with Ogwashi-Uku. It was therefore surprising when Obi Ifechukwude Okonjo and his brother Prince Onyema Okonjo of Ogwashi-Uku audaciously claimed that a law court has granted them ownership of the land. In a Writ of Possession which is the purported Court Consent judgment on Suit No. 0/23/2021 at the High Court of Justice, Ogwashi-Uku between HRM Obi Ifechukwude Aninshi Okonjo, Prince Ifeakanachukwu Emordi as plaintiffs/claimants and Ashi Industries Limited (owners of Ashi Farms), Mrs. Felicia Ashibuogwu and Mr. Gregory Ashibuogwu as defendants, it was stated that: “Whereas at the High Court of Delta State Holden at Ogwashi-Uku on the 28th of April, 2022 it was adjudged that the defendants shall surrender to the claimants 470 hectares of land out of 686.70 hectares of all that parcel of land lying and situate at Edo Ogwashi-Uku settlement in Ogwashi-Uku Kingdom/Clan and which land is more particularly described and delineated on survey Plan Number: ASC/DT/ 205/2017 attached to Certificate of Occupancy Number DTSR No. 22662 granted to the defendants on the 1st days of July, 2021″.

“The defendants shall retain the remaining 216.740 hectares of the said land for themselves”. This Writ of Possession was dated 17th day of October, 2024. Similarly, in a letter Ref. No. HCO/23/Vol. 4/164 dated 21st October, 2024 from High Court of Justice, Ogwashi-Uku to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) for the attention of the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Zone 5, headquarters Benin-city, the court had requested for the service of 25 police officers to provide security to Court officials during the execution of the Writ of Possession in Suit. No. 0/23/2021 earlier mentioned between Obi of Ogwashi-Uku and Ashi Industries Limited.

According to the letter, the request for such high number of police personnel was as a result of the size of parcel of land and time within which the execution would entail. The execution was scheduled to take place on 28th October, 2024 at Asaba according to a letter signed by the Assistant Chief Registrar, Mr. E.C. Oji.

This request for police protection was eventually approved by the Inspector General of Police vide a letter dated 4th November, 2024 signed by his former Principal Staff Officer II, Deputy Commissioner of Police Asuquo Effion with Reference No. CB.3594/IGP.SEC/ABJ/Vol.12/78. The letter granted the AIG Zone 5 police headquarters, authority to comply with the letter requesting for police protection; but sadly, it was later discovered that the IGP did not have details of issues bordering on the land in question.

It was therefore not surprising that the Ogwashi-Uku monarch and his agents maximized the use of police from Zone 5 police headquarters attempting to entrench themselves in the territory in question and putting those whose lands were being forcefully taken over under serious security and life threatening scenarios.

It is important to note that these lands are all entirely within the territorial space of Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku which from time immemorial have no territorial relationship or linkage with Edo Ogwashi and Ashi Industries Limited (Ashi Farms) which the purported court ruling gave permission to go and reclaim.
Therefore, on 16th December, 2024 Obi Ifechukwude Okonjo agents were chased out by the youths who were accompanied by some policemen from FCT Command Headquarters, who were brought by Ubulu-Okiti community to assist in maintaining law and order and driving away illegal land grabbers. They were also accompanied by a News Crew for the purposes of transparency.

At that event, no policeman or agent of the land grabbers were abducted or beaten up and there was no issues of armed robbery of money and Handsets as alleged.
It was therefore spurious for Obi Ifechukwude Okonjo and his brother Prince Onyema Okonjo to later claim that their Police men and agents were beaten up, injured or abducted. The orchestration of this false narrative by the monarch subsequently resulted in the event of 21st December, 2024 during which Chief Linus Osemene and two others were arrested and taken away at midnight hours by police from Zone 5 Police headquarters.

As if that was not enough, the same Chief Linus Osemene and others were reported in some online platforms a few days thereafter as having been declared as suspects to face criminal trial at the Federal High Court, Asaba on 10-count charges among which was alleged illegal possession of arms.

In line with the Communities earlier statement, some of the so called suspects mentioned in the publication, such as, Dr. Emmanuel Brasca Ifeadi, a retired Deputy Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Chief Linus Osemene and Mr Chijioke Agafiene, were not even physically present at the scene during the Communal confrontation with the land grabbers and their agents. Neither did our communities youths who chased away the land grabbers steal any handsets or money as alleged.

While we still consider such publication and criminal charging in Court as an attempt by the Ogwashi-Uku monarch and his collaborators to stand truth on its head, and thus, thoroughly intimidate Ubulu-Okiti natives, we passionately call on the Inspector General of Police whom we suspect is obviously being misinformed and all Civil Rights activists to urgently and carefully investigate the following:

In the purported Consent Judgment between the Ogwashi-Uku monarch and Ashi Industries Limited, were Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu- Uku communities mentioned as parties to the case ?
Are Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku communities within Ogwashi-Uku Kingdom territorial jurisdiction ?
When and how have Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu- Uku become part of Edo Ogwashi which the Consent Judgment referred to ?

Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu – Uku are never part of Edo Ogwashi; and have never had land disputes with each other in the past. Why now that HRM Obi Ifechukwude Okonjo is the monarch ?
It is glaring that Obi Okonjo and his cohorts are known masters of these bizarre and surreal type of accusations against owners of community lands they want to criminally grab at all cost.

In this Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku communities’ land conflict, they are hell bent on criminalizing and pulling down Dr. Emmanuel Brasca Ifeadi, Chief Linus Osemene and Mr. Agafiene at all cost in order to thoroughly intimidate Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku communities.

If one may ask, where is the 686.70 hectares of land purportedly owned by Ashi Industries Limited in question, which is the main subject in the Consent judgment, situated ?
Which VALID map of Delta State or approved survey plan shows Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku land territorial space as being part of the 686.70 hectares ?

Certainly, Edo Ogwashi does not have 686.70 hectares, so the survey plan done in 2017 which now includes — Ogwashi-Uku kingdom, Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku shows that Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku have been dubiously annexed by the Ogwashi-Uku monarch.

In land ownership matters, the implication of including Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala – Ubulu-Uku communities in the survey plan of 2017 which are not fundamentally part of Ogwashi-Uku kingdom from time immemorial is that the purported Certificate of Occupancy on the lands, automatically becomes invalid since Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku lands do not belong to Ogwashi-Uku Kingdom for centuries as erroneously claimed in their survey.

If the Certificate of Occupancy in question was genuinely acquired by Ashi Industries Limited, why should the Ogwashi-Uku monarch therefore, try to share the land with C of O purportedly belonging to Ashi Industries ?
If the Ogwashi-Uku monarch and his collaborators were acting genuinely, why should they resort to asking through the Court for the provision of 25 police men from Zone 5 Benin during the execution of Writ of Possession ?

Assuming that the lands of Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku truly belong to the Ogwashi-Uku kingdom as being claimed, would the repossession be achieved through the use of force and violence in a democratic society where the rule of law ought to operate ?

Why has the Ogwashi-Uku monarch through his agents chosen to blatantly disobey (by their continous invasion, bulldozing and general walling of Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku lands), the Delta State government which through the Deputy Governor, had earlier ordered for a restraint of actions on any land in dispute in all land related conflicts in Delta State until the Commission of Inquiry set up late last year, submits its report and the White Paper from Delta State Government released ?

Why is the Ogwashi-Uku monarch through his purported Consent Judgment fraudulently claiming a large part of Ubulu-Okiti, Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku farm lands established long ago. For example, Mr. Luke Ejiofor’s land with very authentically certified Documents; and that of so many other Families of Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala / Ubulu-Uku nativity, such as, A.O. Ifeadi Family Plantation, which was established since 1960; officially surveyed in1965, with a 1982 Customary Right of Occupancy and valid State Statutory Certificate of Occupancy issued since 1991 ?

Why is it that Ogwashi-Uku under HRM Obi Ifechukwude Okonjo’s reign alone, has serious land disputes with all towns and communities around Ogwashi-Uku (Nine Communities), including land conflicts within even his immediate Ogwashi-Uku kingdom like his long drawn conflicts with Agidiehe Quarters in Ogwashi-Uku, thereby causing avoidable general public disorder in Delta State ?

From the foregoing submissions, we can safely assert that the Ogwashi-Uku monarch and his collaborators are the trespassers of Ubulu-Okiti, Aniagbala-Ubulu – Uku lands. It is revealing that even up till the present time, Obi Okonjo and his brother Prince Onyema Okonjo in connivance with the Utomi brothers of Isah Ogwashi are still keeping numerous seriously armed Militia from Agulere in Anambra State and armed men from the Hunters Association of Nigeria, all within Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu – Uku lands preventing their indigenes from going into their farms to harvest their farm products. Indegenes from these communities are always seriously beaten up and charged for Criminal offences in Court any time they refuse to be prevented from accessing their farms. All these are continually carried out with impunity even when Court cases are on and the Delta State Government White Paper on these multiple Communal conflicts is still being awaited.

We sincerely appeal to the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu, National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Executive Governor of Delta State, Inspector General of Police, Assistant Inspector General of Police Zone 5 Benin, Commissioner of Police Delta State, all Civil Society and Civil Rights Activists, to critically and painstakingly look into our awful position as stated above with a view to getting to the root of the matter and avoid being misinformed by the Ogwashi-Uku monarch and his collaborators who are hell bent on a total annexation of Ubulu-Okiti and Aniagbala/Ubulu-Uku lands for sales to greedy land developers and in the process throw Delta State into total disorder and disaster please.

The amiable and resourceful Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori should also walk his talk by seriously intervening in this protracted land grabbing syndrome involving the Ogwashi-Uku Monarch.