By Ihechi Enyinnaya
The Ubomiri community in Imo State is in turmoil, following the lynching of a senior Police Officer, Chief DSP Livinus Iwu by his brothers over a land.
Sources close to the family told Daily Review Online that DSP Iwu who only retired last month from the Police and who held thanksgiving service on December 31, 2017 had been engrossed in a dispute over a piece of land before his untimely death.
It was gathered that while Iwu was in active service, some of his brothers had continued to sell off part their family land. When he could no longer condone it, he asked them to keep off from the remaining land, insisting that they had grown up children and that the remaining land should be left for them.
His entreaties however fell on deaf ears. His brothers insisted that the parcel of land should be sold and the proceeds shared among them.
On this day, they reportedly arranged for buyers and had called Iwu to come to the site.
Sensing that danger was lurking around, DSP Iwu was said to have released a shot in the air which had his brothers and the supposed buyers running away. But this decision was said to have angered a passers-by who pounced on Iwu and attempted to retrieve the gun from him.
In the ensuing scuffle, the young man was accidentally shot. Thereafter, late Iwu and two other sympathisers arranged to take the wounded to the hospital. On their way to the hospital, the young man gave up the ghost.
His efforts to report the case to the Police immediately were resisted as those with him persuaded him to come back to the community and report first and since it was a communal matter, it would be amicably settled.
His decision to come back was to lead to a fatal end. Unknown to him, his brothers and others had mobilized with a keg of petrol, clubs, knives and tyres. Immediately he drove back, they pounced on him and clobbered him to death. Thereafter, they hung a tyre on his neck and set him ablaze.
What would have led to further deaths in the community was saved by divine intervention, as a Good Samaritan ran to inform his two children who were at home that a mob was coming to attack them and had taken a decision that every member of his family should not be spared.
Moments after his children escaped, the mob led by his brother arrived and burnt down his house.
Already the Police have swooped on the community while two of his brothers identified as the ring leaders have fled.