By Raymond Ozoji, Awka
“Since that 22nd of July this year after Vincent Udobi’s led thugs attacked and beat me up like a common criminal at Nkwo market, I have not been myself. I don’t breathe very well anymore and from the result of the X-rays carried out on me, the beating affected my spinal cord.”
That was the President-General of Ifitedunu community in Dunukofia Local Government Area of Anambra State, Chief Uchenna Nwoye Oragwuncha, who spoke with our correspondent from his hospital bed in Malaga Spain.
Chief Nwoye said he narrowly escaped death on 22nd July this year at Nkwo Ifitedunu where he was executing some community projects; when suddenly one Vincent Udobi popularly called Ike Dunukofia and his fierce looking thugs allegedly swooped on him, panel-beating him and his executives so mercilessly for reasons he could not comprehend till date.
He said the pains from the terror unleashed on him by Ike Dunukofia and his boys still palpitates. That his spinal cord was affected and it is costing him millions of money to get himself treated abroad.
Nwoye, who said Vincent Udobi, the former President-General of the community, Chief Samuel Nweke and their gang of daredevil thugs had allegedly chased him away from Ifitedunu and warned him never to set foot in the community, said his life is under threat because Ike Dunukofia and his gang have sworn that they will kill him if they see him anywhere around Ifitedunu.
The embattled PG said he had a lot of issues from the pain inflicted on him by Vincent Udobi’s thugs. He however recalled that his sins were his refusal to be part of the secret plot championed by Vincent Udobi and Samuel Nweke to dethrone the traditional ruler of Ifitedunu Igwe Emeka Ilouno.
He said the Vincent Udobi-led group have laid siege to the Civic Centre and currently parading someone else as acting President-General of Ifitedunu Town Union even as he stated that his tenure as the PG Ifitedunu was still running and that he has not committed any impeachable offence to warrant his eviction.
He therefore called on security agencies to expedite action and not allow their investigations to linger till the end of the year; that he has video clips of what Vincent Udobi and his thugs did to him on 22nd July this year.
Again, Chief Nwoye said a motion has been moved on the floor of the Anambra State House of Assembly by the lawmaker representing Dunukofia State Constituency that all those involved in the mob action against him should be investigated and brought to book.
“I am hoping on the security agencies to do the needful because they are still laying siege in my office. All the official documents including N4.5 Million community project money I left in the office before they invaded the place have been confiscated by them. One Chukwudi Anaene, one of Vincent Udobi’s thugs is now parading himself as acting President-General.
“I have notified the state government of this ugly development but am still waiting for their actions. I am calling on the state government to take decisive action on the matter. I am also calling on the security agencies to take action. Let the culprits be brought to book.
“We are working for the government and the government is supposed to give us maximum protection.”
He said he was hopeful that government would do the needful and bring his assailants to justice.
As of the time of conducting this interview, the embattled Ifitedunu President-General, said he had spent well over N8 million on his medical trip abroad and that more money would be spent as treatment was still ongoing.
Reacting to the claims by Chief Uchenna Nwoye Oragwuncha of attempts on his life by Chief Vincent Udobi, a former President-General of Ifitedunu Town Union, Chief Samuel Nweke, dismissed the claims, saying that they were all lies from the pit of hell.
Nweke, who stated categorically that Uchenna Nwoye Oragwuncha was no longer their PG because the entire community had passed a vote of no confidence on him due to financial improprieties and his non-transparent leadership, maintained that Nwoye didn’t travel for medical reasons instead he traveled to Malaga Spain to visit his family.
Nweke noted that Uchenna Nwoye Oragwuncha and his family live in Spain and he traveled to celebrate his wife’s birthday and not for so-called medical trip he is currently using to blackmail public spirited individuals and equally using same to play on the intelligence of unsuspecting people as such has been his stock-in-trade since they were friends in Europe.