Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi has suspended all his political appointees from Effium and Ezza Effium communities following a bloody clash that claimed scores of lives and led to the destruction of property worth millions of naira on Saturday.
The crisis, which escalated in one of the communities and spilled into another, was as a result of clashes between two factions of National Union of Road Transport Workers in the area.
Umahi said he would also approach the State House of Assembly for it to make decisions on the fate of the elected political office holders from the area.
The governor, who spoke at the State Security Council meeting held in Effium community on Monday, said all the political appointees and stakeholders in police custody would remain in detention until peace returned in the area.
“All political appointments in these five wards are hereby suspended. I have no power to suspend elected people, but the House of Assembly does have and I’m going to report to them and they are going to take decision on that,” Umahi said.
Umahi further vowed that any of them found to have hand in the crisis would be tried for murder and arson.
The governor directed the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, Cletus Ofoke, to procure court order, that “For anybody to be released from detention under whatever condition, I have to authorise it.
“The political appointees will remain in the detention until absolute peace returns and anybody connected will be charged with murder; so, you will not see them quickly.
“The women will be the one to report to me. The women will come in their numbers, equal number from Effium and Ezza-Effium and report and say, there is peace.
“But any political appointee or elected that got involved, I’m screening their phones. I have asked network providers to give me their conversions and any of them that is involved will go to prison and will be charged with murder and arson.”