Tension in Omambara over controversial naming of Anambra Cargo Airport road

Tension in Omambara over controversial naming of Anambra Cargo Airport road

A cross section of Umueri people of Anambra East Local government have protested against the treatment the community is receiving in the hands of Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, who incidentally is a son of Aguleri, a neighboring town of Umueri and who for ages have been embroiled in land disputes that have led to loss of lives and properties worth millions of Naira.

The recent crisis which has to do with inclusion of two different communities of Aguleri and Otuocha in the name of the access road, even when the two mentioned communities have no direct route to the place where the airport is located

In a report made available by Comrade Biafra Diboh, one of the leader of Greater Umueri liberation Forum(GULF), the group requested the Governor to do the needful by reverting back to the original name of the road as the name has no proximity geographically with the two communities that were included in the Project. One of the Youth, Mr. Felix Udemgba wanted to know the rationale of adding the two communities in a access road, where-as the two communities did not in anyway connect to the road. 

Though the investigation conducted by our Reporters, has it that the Governor may not be totally aware of the whole exercise as he made it clear during the flag off campaign that he will never be part of any plot to christen any project his government will do in Umueri as "Aguleri's project'.  He emphasized that his government ".. will not support any Umueri project to be christened Aguleri". One of the eye witnessed who does not want his name mention, claimed that on unveiling the plaque for commissioning, the Governor was so sad and told his officials that such sign-post should not be allowed to be there.   

Even after such a re-assuring words from the State Chief Executive, tension is on high as most Umueri Youth have taken to Social networking sites to protest the strange news, which some still believe is an orchestrated plot to take over Umueri. 

It will be recall that for past two weeks rumor of changing the airport name from Umueri to Aguleri has been so rife that some Umueri start protesting. A week ago, precisely 16th February, Barr. Philip Obuesi, a Lagos based Attorney posted on his wall "UMUERI is too big too big to become an extension of another community. Even Onitsha couldn't swallow Obosi, 33 has been liberated... Umueri's time will come."  When contacted over the phone he bared his mind on rumor flying round on the plot of adding Aguleri on the Airport project. This was a week before the plot was hatched. 

In a related development, a sacrilege was committed when Onowu Umueri, Chief Mike Ekwonu was prevented from presenting kola on behalf of the host community to the guest. It would be recalled that the Onowu Umueri have been standing in for the demise Igwe Umueri for the last 20 years and has always been the one that perform such task for Umueri. But at the flagging of ceremony to signalize the construction of the Airport access road group of Government Personnel barred him from blessing the kola nut . When our reporters approached Onowu Umueri at his Palace in Mgbago Umueri, he confirmed that he was surprised on the turn of event that throughout the past administrators of Mbadinuju, Ngige and Peter Obi, that he was the person that performed the traditional breaking of kola nut but on this particular event, the kola was forcefully taken away from him and given to HRH Igwe Idigo of Aguleri, who performed the task to the cheering of the Governor