Members of Idima Abam rural community in Arochukwu Local Council, Abia State, yesterday protested the arrest and detention of their leader, Ezeogo Chukwu Jonah. Jonah was arrested at a security checkpoint in Ntigha along the Aba/Umuahia Expressway on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, while returning from Aba, and was subsequently detained in Abuja. Community members trooped out in large numbers carrying placards to express their displeasure.
Speaking to newsmen, President-General of Idima Abam, Patrick Dike, said Jonah’s arrest was ordered by the Force Headquarters following a petition lodged by an influential member of the community. He said the community had petitioned the state government last week through their representative, the Majority Leader of the House of Assembly. Some of the placards read ‘Release our Ezeogo, Chukwu Jonah’, ‘Ezeogo is our Liberator, Leave him alone’, ‘DIG FCID should obey the IGP Directive’, ‘Holding our Ezeogo (King) is just incarcerating the whole community’, ‘Governor Alex Otti, please help Idima Abam Community’, and ‘Let the Police stop harassing and intimidating innocent community members’.
Wife of the detainee, Mrs Mary Chukwu Jonah, confirmed that her husband was arrested between 2.00pm and 3.00pm at Ntigha by the police and taken to the Life Camp Abuja Police facility. She said her husband called her with a borrowed phone to inform her of the arrest and detention. Mrs Jonah said: “I was asked to say that my husband died in an accident, but I refused to say so.”
Community members who spoke in turns corroborated that there had been killings in the community by a group that had been banned. The President-General stated that there had been a leadership and kingship tussle between two families traditionally responsible for producing the community’s traditional ruler, with each laying claim to the vacant stool. It was gathered that between 2017 and 2019, a group allegedly murdered four members of the Idima Abam community, who were described as poor villagers leaving behind widows and children.
Community sources said it had been difficult to bring the murderers to justice because of backing from wealthy patrons. They recalled that on October 21, 2022, a group of Idima Abam indigenes led by Chukwu Jonah petitioned the DIG FCID, Abuja, over the murders and other human rights violations. After repeated back and forth, the petition was transferred to the FCID, Enugu, for investigation, but the officers sent to investigate never visited any of the deceased families. Instead, when they came to the village, they were said to have associated with the suspects and their sponsor before leaving, eventually reporting to their superiors in Abuja that the principal petitioner, Chukwu Jonah, had given false information.
It was on the basis of this report that Jonah is being detained at the Life Camp police station without access to family members and food. The police have not responded at press time, as calls to the spokesperson for the Abia State Police Command were not answered.
