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Ex-editor escapes death in Enugu

By Lawrence Njoku, Enugu
21 October 2020   |   3:00 am
A former Regional Editor of Vanguard newspaper and Publisher of the Southeast Post online newspaper, Emeka Mamah, escaped death by the whiskers as two hired assassins attacked him near his house

A former Regional Editor of Vanguard newspaper and Publisher of the Southeast Post online newspaper, Emeka Mamah, escaped death by the whiskers as two hired assassins attacked him near his house in Enugu.

Mamah said the incident occurred on October 12, 2020, at 8.30 pm, saying some yet-to-be-identified hoodlums attacked in his country home at Imufu, Igbo-Eze North Council Area of Enugu State.

He said the assailants had hit him severally on the head until he fainted before they escaped, thinking he was dead.

He told reporters on his hospital bed yesterday that he had crossed the road to buy shaving sticks in an adjacent shop and was returning to the house when the hoodlums, who had been trailing him, tried to kill him.

Also in a three-page petition to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the Commissioner of Police (CP), Ahmad Abdulrahman, through his lawyer, Joseph Onuh, he alleged that a traditional ruler in the community (names withheld) had threatened his life over alleged fabrication and forging of signatures of some members of the community in a constitution that brought him to power.

“That the Igwe once instigated the funeral procession of our client and other members of Imufu Community who are still alive to the extent that the matter was taken to police Zone 9 in Umuahia subsequent upon which the Igwe wrote an undertaking to be of good behavior sometime in February 2017.

“That the Igwe threatened our client when he disagreed with the Igwe’s stand that by the rotation arrangement, it was the turn of Umuossai Clan to produce the next chairman of Imufu Neighbourhood Watch group when the tenure of the former executive members expired on March 15, 2020.

“That Umualumona (Umuossai and Umuowaa clans) protested against the Igwe’s position that it was the turn of Onaje Clan and the Igwe threatened and accused our client of instigating the protest,” the petition reads.

But when contacted, the traditional ruler said he was innocent of the allegations, saying, “I was given a chieftaincy title in appreciation of my contributions to the community. I went through due process in the local government before I became the traditional ruler of this community and the community had celebrated my coronation.

“The present trouble started when the President General (PG) of the community, Lawrence Mamah, brought a document and asked me to sign. He told me that the tenure of the present chairman of the Neighbourhood Watch has elapsed and that another election was due.

“I declined endorsing it because I was not consulted and I told him that we have to discuss it in our general assembly and decide the clan that should produce the next chairman of the group.

“I approached the elders’ council to inform them that it was the turn of Onaje to produce the next chairman of the watch group, but I was resisted.”

However, Mamah said the Imufu General Assembly decided that it was Umuossai’s turn to produce the chairman of the neighbourhood watch in the presence of the Igwe, adding that he promised to abide by the General Assembly’s decision.

Meanwhile, the matter has been referred to the state police for investigation.

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