Ebonyi, Ondo regicides

A statement from the government traced the criminality to locals within those parts of the state even as it directed the security agencies to track them down. There has been no information on arrests of suspected masterminds. But tension has since enveloped the community and its environs as the collective injury inflicted by the Oba’s murder persists.

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Eze Francis Igwe was on his way to church on March 1, when a band of kidnappers abducted and ferried him to an unknown destination. Searches by the community to locate the whereabouts of the revered monarch, who was also the father of the immediate past deputy governor of Ebonyi State, Kelechi Igwe, initially proved unsuccessful.

But what appeared a reprieve came a day after when the state police command arrested two suspected members of the kidnap syndicate. They confessed killing the monarch and volunteered to take the police to their hideout to recover the corpse.

When the police got to the hideout, they faced gunfire from the gang. A gun fight ensued with one of the kidnappers neutralised even as some others fled. But seven others were arrested bringing the number of arrests to nine.

A trending video footage, showed the time the remains of the Eze was being retrieved from the bush with residents wailing and cursing all those involved in the dastardly murder. Irate youths who could not contain the abomination, went on rampage burning the homes of suspected masterminds.

It took a detachment of the military to restore normalcy. The two incidents mirror the uncanny fate of traditional rulers in the country in the hands of sundry criminals for whatever reasons. They also speak volumes on the value attached to the sanctity of human life on these shores. There was also the chilling case of the traditional ruler of Agodo, Oba Ayinde Odetola in Ewekoro LGA of Ogun State. He was attacked, murdered and set ablaze with three of his friends in 2022.  His attack by hoodlums followed a crisis that erupted after his installation by the Alake of Egbaland in a village believed to be under the authority of Owu kingdom.

Residents of the village mostly of the Owu extraction were said to have rejected his installation for being an Ake person. The village was deserted after the killing.

 The list is inexhaustible but includes the murder of two traditional rulers, Eze Sampson Osunwa of Ihebineowerre and Eze E. A. Durueburuo of Okwudor while in a meeting at the Njaba Local Government headquarters, Imo State in October 2021. A recent report released by the police fingered Eastern Security Network (ESN) for the murder.

Easily traced to local conflicts, land disputes or targeted attacks by criminal groups, regicides create instability in affected areas with potentials for further breakdown of law and order. King Charles 1 of England was the first recorded English monarch to be formally tried, convicted and executed by his own subjects - an event known as the regicide of 1649.

 But the 59 signatories who were among the 104 individuals accused of direct involvement in the sentence were excluded from the general amnesty following the 1660 Stuart Restoration. Twenty five of the number died before the restoration, eight of the survivors were executed, 16 died awaiting trial or later in prison, two were pardoned while the rest fled into exile.

That was a measure of how serious the execution of King Charles 1 was taken within that era. But not here! Ours is an environment replete with many unresolved cases of regicide. In many of the incidents cited, there has been paucity of information on the arrests, trials and conviction of those involved in the murder of the traditional rulers.

This seems to have emboldened criminal elements in our midst to take resort to extreme measures in getting even with our royal fathers for perceived grievances. But the collective psyche of the people is usually assaulted each time such senseless killings occur.

The traditional stool is a revered institution. It is a repository of the culture, tradition, religion and language of a people. A society is held together by its culture and tradition. All these pristine values of a people find expression through the traditional institution. So it is a desecration of the ways of life of a people when their traditional rulers are kidnapped and murdered without consequences in manners seen in this country.

Good a thing, the police in Ebonyi arrested nine suspects in connection with the murder of Eze Igwe. If the father of the immediate past deputy governor of the state could face such humiliation in his state, then the rest of us are unsafe. The police should go beyond the arrest to publicly parade all the suspects and arraign them to face the raw teeth of the law. In this, all leads must be properly investigated. There appears more to the killing of the Ebonyi monarch since no ransom was demanded by his captors.

The frequency of monarchs’ abduction and eventual murder has become a huge national embarrassment. It desecrates the sanctity of the traditional institution; even as it nurtures potential threat to law, order and peace in the affected communities.

It is a measure of the value of human life in this country that traditional rulers are easily targeted and killed by sundry criminals without serious consequences. No society can allow this tendency without destroying the very fabric on which it was erected. Security agencies and the various levels of government must wake up to this danger.