Six persons have been injured in different locations in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital following the resurgence of supremacy battle between rival cult groups, Vickings and Mafians confraternities, LEADERSHIP Friday gathered yesterday.
It was learnt the Vickings’ adherents had launched a reprisal attack against the Mafians, accused of killing one of their own during the December 2022 clashes, leading to the death of five persons on both sides.
Checks by LEADERSHIP Friday revealed that the hoodlums, armed with dangerous weapons including machetes, guns and charms, attacked homes of suspected opponents at No 1, Mbiakong Street, where they macheted a tenant, vandalized a Toyota Camry car of another tenant and destroyed louvers of the house.
A resident, who would not identified himself in print, said “they (the cultists) arrived in the late night hours when we were already asleep and started destroying our home, vandalized a tenant’s Toyota Camry car parked outside the building, and heavily matcheted another tenant, who was returning from his business, while trying to access his room.”
According to another local resident, the cultists, who were said to have shot sporadically during the raid, swooped on the compound to smoke out a rival member of the opposing group, alleged to have participated in the killing of their member around the former First Bank area of the Ibom Plaza roundabout on the Uyo metropolis during the December festivities.
“They arrived when we were asleep and encircled the entire compound. Through the widow, I asked them what and who they were looking for? But they asked me to open the door, that they know who they were looking for. When I refused, they started destroying the louvers, vandalized the car and macheted one of the tenants,” he explained.
Several homes, according to him, were also destroyed along Ekpenyong street, off Barracks road and other adjoining streets, as the hoodlums intensified their search for their targets.
The police public relations officer of the state command, SP Odiko Macdon, could not pick his calls to ascertain the casual figures at the time of filling this report.
