By Odey Ojeka
A renewed gang clash in Ugep, Yakurr local government area has seen youths in Lekpankom community team up with the Vikings confraternity to chase down members of a rival gang, the Black Axe confraternity.
The Vikings are now hiding under the auspices of the Lekpankom youths to unleash mayhem on their rivals whom they accused of hiding under the auspices of being bodyguards of the Obol Lopon of Ugep, Obol Ofem Ubana.
“The Axemen killed our brother on the 29th of June this year, it is a payback time and continuous exercise. Nobody is waiting for law enforcement officers to apprehend those that killed our brother. We know all the Axemen that killed our brother and they will be made to pay,” a visibly angry Lekpankom youth told CrossRiverWatch on Saturday.
A youth, Jude Iroegbu Junior, nephew to Barrister Okoi Obono-Obla, the Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on prosecution was gruesomely murdered on June 29, 2017 which prompted Obla to publish names of suspected gangstars and petitioned the Inspector General of Police to effect their immediate arrest.
On Saturday, an Axeman identified as one Ibiang of Lebolkom in Ijiman ward of Ugep was caught and beaten mercilessly by the youths before he was rescued by the Police at Obla’s compound close to the park of a transport company.
CrossRiverWatch gathered that this is a reprisal for a similar incident meted out on the Vikings by Axe men earlier in the year when the Axe men led by two men identified as Item and Obor together with Policemen arrested several Vikings members for killing their member whose corpse has not been seen till date.
Now, the Axe men are not happy with the development either, CrossRiverWatch gathered.
A youth (names withheld) told CrossRiverWath that: “It is wrong for the Lekpankom youths to beat and arrest the Axemen. They should allow the police to do their work. Look at what they did to that boy. If not for the police that came and rescued him from them, they would have killed him by now.
“Now some Viking men are using this as an opportunity to aid the Lekpankom youths to beat the Axe men in bad way, they are using razor and bottles to injure them. Are they Police? They want to take the laws into their hands.
“They should allow police to do their work. I am not defending any cultist; I am in support for the Police to arrest them all.”
The arrested Axe men are currently cooling their feet in the Ugep police station.
Leave feedback about this