Bandits operating in Orsu Local Government Area of Imo State have been given a marching order to vacate the council area within two weeks or have themselves to blame.
The apex socio-cultural organization in the council area, Odinma Orsu Initiative (OOI) gave the ultimatum at the weekend.
It declared the invasion of the council area by bandits as both unwarranted and unacceptable.
Recall that Orsu Local Government Area in Imo State has been under heavy attacks by unknown gunmen in the last two years.
The bandits invaded the suburbs such as 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.
The group claimed that hundreds of lives had been lost and properties worth millions of naira destroyed in the local government area which is currently largely deserted.
The Odinma Orsu Initiative at a meeting in Owerri, the Imo State capital on Saturday, resolved that the residents of the council area 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 newsmen in Owerri, President of the group, Eze-elect E. I Nwokeji, ordered the bandits ranging from kidnappers, assassins, arsonists, cultists and other outlaws who have held the area hostage to pack out within two weeks.
He regretted that the residents of the local government area have 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 terrorizing 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 have chosen to take sleep from our eyes by killing, kidnapping and terrorizing our communities, we shall not continue to rest on our oars and watch them perpetrate 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.”
