Ebonyi: Man escapes death by whisker as cousin allegedly attacks him with cutlass over Melina tree

A-42-year old man, Mr Nkwuda Chukwudi Vincent, a native of Ndiogbu in Ndieze autonomous community, Izzi local government area of Ebonyi state has allegedly cut his cousin, Mr Nkwuda Chukwuka's throat for demanding some pieces of cutting tree in the communal land.

The incident it was gathered occured on Monday 15th April,2024 when the suspect, Mr Nkwuda Vincent who is an assistant catechist of St Samuel station Ndiogbu in Ndieze autonomous cut down a tree standing in a boundary land of the two cousins.

According to the victim,Mr Chukwuka who spoke to our correspondent on his hospital bed at Sudan Missionary Hospital,Iboko stated that the trouble started when he met his cousin, Mr Vincent at the communal land cutting some branch of trees. He explained that the suspect briefed him that the victim's father had asked that they cutdown the tree so that it would be used to stake their yam. Narrating his ordeal,"It was on weekend that I went to our land where I met my cousin cutting sticks from a particular tree, and seeing that the tree is standing on our own land, I enquired to know who asked him to cutdown the tree. "According to Mr Vincent, he said that it was my father's directive and when I enquired further asking for equal share of the stick,he retorted in aggressive way resulting to exchange of words. "When it becomes obvious that he was planning to attack me with the cutlass,I used a log of wood to defend it and to my chagrin, he landed the cutlass on my throat which is by the grace of God that I survived.

The victim who said that there was no premonition of such unruly behavior from the cousin called on the family members and community leaders to probe on the matter to serve justice while penalized the defaulter. "I'm happy, am alive to tell the story and believing that both of us are own by the community and family who should ensure that justice is being done on the matter and punish offender to serve as deterrent to anybody trying such abbarition in the future. Confirming the information, one of the family member, Mr Nkwuda Jude Ginika described the incident as horrific adding that they are still treating the victim in ensuring that he recovered from injury sustained during the attack. While clarifying the stand of the family, Mr Jude noted that the matter has been reported to the security agency and added that Iboko Divisional police has taken records of the incident and reiterated that offender would be punished according to the tradition of the people. Meanwhile, efforts to speak with the accused person has proven abortive as his phone number was switched off as at the time of filling this report.