A group, Odinma Orsu Initiative, OOI, has warned bandits operating in Orsu council area of Imo state to vacate the community within two weeks or have themselves to blame.
The apex socio-cultural group in the LGA said the total invasion of bandits in the LGA was both unwarranted and unacceptable.
It would be recalled that Orsu LGA in Imo state has been under heavy attacks by unknown gunmen in a couple of years now.
The unknown bandits were said to have invaded the suburbs of the area including Orsuihitteukwa, Awo-idemili, Eziawa-Orsu, Orsu-ihittenasaa, Elugwu-Okabia, Umuhu-Okabia and some others parts of the LGA, causing residents to flee their homes for fear of the unknown.
Hundreds of lives, according to the group, have been lost and properties worth millions of naira destroyed as the LGA is currently deserted.
However, Odinma Orsu Initiative, in a meeting in Owerri, the Imo state capital on Saturday, resolved that the residents of the LGA shall no longer be cowed and made to live in perpetual fear because of the activities of the unknown gunmen in their land.
Speaking with journalists in Owerri, the President of the group, Eze-elect E. I Nwokeji, said that all sorts of bandits ranging from kidnappers, assassins, arsonists, cultists and various other outlaws who have kept the area on hostage, are by this notice advised to pack out within two weeks.
He regretted that the residents of the LGA had been on the run since two years and half as a result the continued attacks by men of underworld.
He said, “Orsu LGA, my own LGA has been a shadow of itself since two years and half now. As i speak, bandits have taken over our land and we have been made strangers in our own land. We rarely visit our homes for fear of being killed.
“We just finished from a security meeting of all Orsu stakeholders and have taken a decision on the issue. We are giving these bandits terrorising our communities to vacate our land within two weeks of this notice or have themselves to blame.
“We have exhausted all avenues to identify them and dialogue with them but since they chosen to take sleep from our eyes by killing, kidnapping and terrorising our communities, we shall not continue to rest on our oars and watch them perpetrated so many dastardly acts in our land.
“At the end of two weeks, and there is no sign of compliance, we have decided on what to do.”
