An Adamawa community, under the aegis of Wanela Clan of Maya community, in Demsa local government of Adamawa State has cried out over attempts by Dingle Clan to expel them from their ancestral land.
At press briefing today in Yola, spokesman of the Maya Clan, Micheal Kpabille noted that all efforts by the Maya Clan to resolve land dispute behind the lingering secterian tension in the area is usually violently thwarted.
Kpabille noted that ” the Maya Wanela people are peace loving people and have co-existed with the Dingle Clan alongside other Clans like Dwan, Utale, Tamkum and Wafola (which has now gone extinct), for several years since our ancestors without record of any violence against each other save for the recent intolerance which the Dingle Clan began to show against the Wanela Clan.
“This intolerance is as a result of an attempt by the Dingle Clan to disposes the Wanela clan of their ancestral farmlands which was resisted by all, thus the resultant effect was the attack and killing of innocent people by the Dingle Clan,” the spokesman said.
He noted that as a result of the violent confrontations two people of Maya ethnic stock have been killed while several others sustained varying degree of injuries.
He accused one dismissed police officer, Timothy Dafa aka Bamanga behind the escalation of tension between the two ethnic nationalities.
“With the coming of one Timothy Dafa A.KA Bamanga a dismissed Policeman from Yobe who is of Dingle Clan, trouble waters were stirred. Timothy started spreading rumours of ownership of land belonging to the Wanela clan and further took steps by mobilizing his kinsmen to clear farmlands belonging to the Wanela clan preparatory to the farming season in 2018 a situation that culminated into a court action before Maya area court Bali which judgement was in favour of the Wanela clan.
“Aggrieved by the above decision, the Dingle people stopped our women and children from accessing and fetching water from the stream the community shared over time because it is on the side of the Dingle Clan a situation that was reported to the village head and district heads and no action was taken.
“At the meeting conveyed at the palace of the village head of Bali on 9th May, 2019, while the meeting for reconciliation was going on, the district head ordered for the transfer of the case to his palace and under his watchful eyes, out representatives were stabbed with knives, matchete maimed and nearly lost their lives in the hands of the Dingle youth who mobilized to the palace fully armed.
“Despite these ugly incident in his palace nothing was done in form of arrest or sanction by the authority and the attacks on our people by Dingle continued unabated and nobody is brought to book till today,” he said.