Three persons including the Village Head of Orogho Community, Chief Alex Ohenhen in Orhiomwon Local Government Area of Edo state have been killed and property worth millions of naira destroyed in a midnight invasion by yet to be identified assailants.
A visit to the scene of the unfortunate incident revealed a massive destruction of buildings and other valuables including livestock which were ripped open and some economic trees cut down.
Some of the survivors who spoke with reporters after security operatives had condon off the scene of crime said the invaders came into the village from Umoghun Village Road, and started setting fires to some buildings and shot at every living creature in sight.
According to the villagers who appealed to the Edo State Government and security agents to give them protection from further attacks said the invasion may have been carried out by Umoghun Village who had vowed to deal with Orogho Community over royalties from an oil prospecting company which the affected communities had disagreed over its sharing formula.
Orogho villagers said the particular incident was the second in a series of aggresions by Umughun community as they had violently attacked a convoy of vehicles belonging to the Oil prospecting company SEPLAT which had deployed its equipment for an expansions of its oil field in the community after they had agreed on a certain social and infrastructural facilities to be delivered to the clusters of villages under Orogho Community.
During the attack, they said some of the drivers of the vehicles in the convoy were killed by the Umoghun youth who sources claimed were angry over Orogho’s village head’s refusal to share the 10 million naira royalty paid by SEPLAT on equal bases.
The villagers alleged that the Umughun community may have been emboldened to invade their community because nothing was done to track the killers of the oil workers as it was treated as an armed robbery attack even though some of the Umoghun villagers boasted that they carried out the attack to prove to the oil company that they cannot be ignored.
The Police is now investigating the remote and immediate cause of the attack and are calling on all those with useful information about the crises between the two waring communities to come forward with same.
The challenge therefore is that the Star witness one Alex Ohenhen who incidentally is the surviving son of the late village head of Orogho has gone into hiding for fear of being killed by hirelings of Umoghun village.
