Edo State: Esan Youths Threaten To Shut Down Benin-Auchi Highway Over Bad Roads & Kidnapping

 

“Take Notice that the resilient Esan People would block all vehicular movements through Benin Abuja Road and Uromi-Ewu Road at the the famous Ewu Junction for three days and three nights from October 1 to 3, 2022.”

PEGASUS REPORTERS, LAGOS | SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

The youths of Edo Central Senatorial District of Edo state have issued a stern warning to both federal and state governments that it will shut down movement along the Benin-Auchi and Uromi- Ewu axes for three (3) days to protest the abandonment of the roads and the attendant kidnapping and banditry going on along the roads.

A press statement issued by the group; Esan People’s Uprising and signed by the group’s director of Operations noted that the closure will be effective from October 1st, 2023 and will be total as no vehicular activities will be allowed on the roads which link Benin city through Auchi to Okenne and from Ekpoma through Uromi to the eastern part of the country.

Our correspondent who visited the road observed that the road from Ekpoma to Auchi is totally un-motorable and has become an veritable ambush zone for kidnappers and banditry.A youth who spoke with PegasusReporters.com said in pidgin expression:

“If dem think say dem (governments) go leave di road like dis so dat those fulani herdsman go dey kidnap our people anyhow, make dem ready to face us on Independence day. We go know weda na dem get this land or we. We don suffer reach”

Adding her voice to our investigation, a young lady who claimed to be an indigene and an undergraduate of Ambrose Alli University but spoke under a condition of anonymity had this to say:

“Everyday, we have cases of rape of our mothers and women and sometimes they are killed. Last week a woman was raped by 4 Fulani herdsmen with injuries all over her. What kind of beast are those who rape and kill. We shall join our boys to tell both the federal and state government that before government Esan people lived peacefully”

Full text of the statement as follows:

WARNING NOTICE TO SHUT DOWN EWU JUNCTION FOR THREE DAYS TO PROTEST ABANDONED BENIN-AUCHI, UROMI-EWU ROADS

We the people of Esanland, in a bid to protect ourselves from the continued neglect and orchestrated destruction of our economy and society by both the state and federal governments, considering also that our legislators in both state and federal government have failed us by their conspiratorial silence over the years, we have resolved to protest to the nation and the world at large and wish to serve this notice of an impending Total Shut Down of the Ewu Junction to vehicular movement from Independence Day to October 3 2022.

Take Notice that the resilient Esan People would block all vehicular movements through Benin Abuja Road and Uromi-Ewu Road at the the famous Ewu Junction for three days and three nights from October 1 to 3 2022. This Protest is to draw government’s attention to the nearly a decade dilapidation and government-abandonment-induced carnage on the entire Esan roads, and the very deplorable state of the Ekpoma axis, Irrua axis, Uromi axis and the Ewu Junction that has caused hundreds of death tolls, fire outbreaks and ghastly accidents.

Edo State and the Federal Governments are by this notice informed that to avoid this irrevocable decision of the Esan People to shut down the road they should use this two weeks notice to immediately effect, at least, a palliative measure on the road they have abandoned for over nine painful years.

The public who may be inconvenienced by this desperate measure are by this notice advised to find alternative routes or near with our painful but necessary surgical procedures to resolving the perennial problems of very bad and dangerous roads in Esanland.

Everyone living in Esanland are by this notice invited to move over to Ewu Junction bringing playing, sleeping and cooking materials and if they like let them bring all the armies of Nigeria and Congo to drive us out, we shall surely disobey but without violence.

Enough is Enough, Oneghe Osele!

Signed:
Imetobometale Ofeiyemu Iwolo
Director of Operations
ESAN PEOPLE’S UPRISING 2022

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