Anambra Killings: False news peddlers same as crime perpetrators – Commissioner Adinuba

Awka – Anambra State Government has vowed to apprehend and prosecute all involved in the Monday’s killings at Ukpomachi village, Awkuzu in Oyi LGA as well as those responsible for the spread of false information about the incident.

Since the incident on Monday, during which nine persons including women and children were killed, several pictures and videos have surfaced online showing all manner of gory images, with the posters claiming they happened in Awkuzu.

Some had also claimed the nine slain persons were members of a Fulani family.

Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Mr C-Don Adinuba in a chat with TNC correspondent in Awka on Monday, described the videos and pictures being circulated as false, saying they do not represent what truly happened in Awkuzu.

According to him, such images are capable of instigating hate and violence among the populace.

“Following the clash in the early morning of Monday, April 26, between some people in Uzo Nkwo, Awkuzu, in Oyi Local Government Area, and some non-indigenes, some people were killed and some others maimed. Both sides recorded casualties. Security agents quickly moved to the scene and took control of the situation.

“However, rather than give a reliable picture of what transpired, some external forces have been posting on social media, lurid pictures of what took place outside Anambra State long ago and claim that they are pictures of the incident at Awkuzu. The misleading pictures and accounts are so contradictory that while some claim that the dead were indigenes, others claim they were non-indigenes. Each side has been desperate to incite the public against the other,” Adinuba worried.

He noted that the State Government is deeply concerned that some mischievous people would go to the extent of producing pictures of heinous killings elsewhere and claim that the murders took place in Anambra.

According to him, the intention of the false information peddlers, is ‘to stoke a fire in a state which for the past seven years, has been acknowledged by all to be the safest and most peaceful in the whole country.’

The Anambra Information Commissioner revealed that the State Government has already taken some measures to fish out those who perpetrated the dastardly killings and those who have produced pictures from all manner of places with the sole of aim of portraying the people as barbarians and raising tension in the polity.

“Far from succeeding”, Adinuba said, “the culprits, who are reportedly from outside the state, will be identified, arrested, tried, sentenced and made to feel the full weight of the law.

“Anybody who sheds the blood of innocent souls in Anambra State will account for it both in this world and in the world to come. All those who have been involved in grave security breaches in the state in the last few weeks are already being arrested, and they include the nine persons who on March 31, 2021, killed three police officers providing security at the Isuofia Civic Centre in Aguata Local Government Area where the erstwhile Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo of the All Grand Progressives Alliance (APGA), was having an interactive session with the youth in his Isuofia community.”

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