CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

According to historical accounts (Leadership Newspaper), Asata, Coal camp, New market, Ogui urban including Obiagu areas of the city belongs to Ogui Nike people. But during the colonial era, the white men started developing parts of the land owned by the Ogui Nike people. That explains why Obiagu is presently inhabited by people from almost the five south east states namely; Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo and even the present day Enugu state. Also a portion of Obiagu was then inhabited by the Hausa community, who came to the city as either cattle dealers or artisans. But following the events leading to the outbreak of the Nigeria Biafra war in 1967, a good number of Hausa men living in the area left for their different states in the north and never returned to the area, then the community was taken over by Nigerians from other ethnic groups, particularly Igbo, yet it still answer “Ama Hausa” [house of Hausa community], but has refused to shed its toga of a ghetto. When police or other security agencies are looking for suspected criminals, they usually gear their search light on obiagu, because of the belief that it is a criminal infested area (Ubani, 2012).