About four persons were feared dead and several others left with varying degrees of bullet wounds on Monday, November 17, 2014, following separateclashes in Owerri,the capital of Imo State and Abonema in Rivers State.
Two of the deceased were killed at Ama Hausa, Owerri following a misunderstanding between a Hausa trader and an indigene of Owerri municipality, while the other two lost their lives in what community sources described as a battle for supremacy by rival cult groups in Abonnema, headquarters of Akuku Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Business activities were brought to a halt in some parts of Owerri especially along the Douglas Road as the news of the bloody attack filtered the air.
But for a timely deployment of some troops and policeoperatives, the incident would have gotten worse.
Although there were several accounts to the incident, one of the stories that made the rounds had it that trouble started when the alleged Owerri indigene and his team were in the area to collect the usual daily toll from the Hausa trader.
A Northern man who claimed to have witnessed the incident, said that following the “incessant harassment” by the toll collectors, the Hausa trader brought out his knife with which he used to attack the toll collectors.
According to the man, in a bid to retaliate, the victim reportedly grabbed one of the knives on the Hausa man’s table and inflicted injuries on his attacker.
