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| Ifeyinwa |
Kosara, a class one student at Government
Junior Secondary School, Lugbe, was to go to school that Tuesday
morning. However, her foster father – David Okoye – felt that his wife –
Ifeyinwa – would need her help. He asked her to accompany Ifeyinwa
-who had decided to seek spiritual help for their new born baby -to
church.
The 36-year-old mother of four was so
anxious to take her baby to Deliverance Prayer Ministry, Pyakasa, that
she did not want anything to hinder her. She had been invited to the
place by a friend who had told her that she would get solution to her
baby’s ailment there.
Continue after the cut...
She became impatient when Kosara couldn’t
locate the padlock and key with which to lock their apartment door. She
flagged down an ‘Okada’ and by the time Kosara came out, Ifeyinwa had
gone with the baby, Mmesoma. Unable to trace her aunty, Kosara returned
to the house.
When David came back from his farm in the
afternoon, he was surprised to see Kosara and no trace of his wife. It
was then he knew that his wife had gone to the church without Kosara. As
the day wore on, he became anxious that the woman had not returned.
When he could no longer bear the waiting,
he went to the church to look for her. He was told that the wife was
not seen within the premises. Fear of the unknown gripped his heart as
he left the church premises.
As he made it back to his house, he felt
the rational thing was to head to Lugbe Divisional Police Headquarters.
At the police station, he lodged the complaint that his wife and baby,
Mmeso, born on December 15, 2012, at Primary Health Centre, Lugbe, were
missing.
An Investigative Police Officer was
assigned the case. After lodging his complaint, David was asked to
return in 24 hours, if by then they hadn’t returned. This was at about
7pm on that fateful Tuesday.
David could hardly sleep that night. Anxiously, he waited for daybreak.
David could hardly do anything the next
day. He spoke to anyone that he could. Before the 24-hours he was to
return to the police station, he received a call from one of his pastors
from the Deeper Life Bible Church.
The pastor asked the whereabouts of his
wife and David lamented that she had been missing. It was then the
pastor told him that he got a call from the police. The corpse of the
woman had been found in a gutter near the FHA Gate Junction.
Apparently, when the police saw the
corpse in the gutter, they saw the woman’s Bible and tucked inside the
Bible was a paper on which was written the pastor’s phone number. They
called the pastor who acknowledged that he knew the family.
Then, David and the pastor went to the
police station and from there to the gutter where the body had been
found. The tongue of the woman was sticking out. The body was beginning
to decompose.
David could not ask too many questions
but he asked the whereabouts of his baby. It was then that the police
told him the most shocking story of his life.
According to him, the police told him
that the baby had been brought to the police station the previous day by
a woman the police claimed was a Good Samaritan and this was before he
laid complaint at the same police station.
The Good Samaritan, the police told him,
had seen the woman the previous day in a condition that suggested the
baby’s life was in danger. She rescued the baby from the mother and
brought the baby to the police station.
David lamented, “My wife was not drunk.
She had no mental problem. It was for the baby that she was going to the
deliverance ministry. Okay, if my wife was not well; why did the Good
Samaritan not rescue my wife? Was it only the baby that needed to be
rescued? I love my wife more than any child.”
The only explanation that David could get
from the police was that when the Good Samaritan brought the baby, they
asked a police officer to follow her to where the mother was but
unfortunately, they did not see her at the spot the baby was taken from
her.
David knew that there were too many
questions to be asked, but time was running out. The body of his wife
was beginning to decompose. If there was any delay, the mortuary would
not accept her body.
He had to make arrangement to take the
body to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital in Gwagwalada where
the body was eventually deposited in the mortuary. Before the process
could be completed, it was already about 3am on Thursday. He was
accompanied by the police.
Asked if he had demanded for autopsy to
be performed on the corpse of his late wife, David, a farmer and a
former Chairman of the Amalgamated Commercial Motorcycle Owners
Association of Nigeria – before commercial motorcycle was banned in the
city centre – said he had no money for that.
He said, “I have been growing dry season
corn by the waterside. It is the corn that I grow that my wife roasts
for our feeding and upkeep. Since she died, money is not coming in. I
cannot even ask police questions. I know them very well when I was an
Okada rider. If you go there to make a statement, they will demand for
money which I don’t have. Now that we are no longer harvesting the corn,
within two weeks, it will dry up and lose its value.”
Public Relations Officer at the
University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Mr. Frank Omagbon, confirmed to
our correspondent that the body of the deceased was brought dead to the
hospital in the late hours of Wednesday by David and the police.
Following due process, he added, the
casualty unit of the hospital confirmed the body dead before it was
eventually deposited in the morgue.
At Sauka Tauka, a village near FHA
Estate, where the Okoyes live, the suspicion on everybody’s lip was that
Ifeyinwa had been killed for ritual.
Divisional Police Officer at Lugbe, Mr.
Rabiu Sabiu, told our correspondent that the police was not
investigating the death of the woman because she died of “sudden natural
death” and for the fact that the husband did not raise any suspicion.
He said, “The woman was found in the
state of being mentally affected. Public spirited people within the
community saw the state of the woman, rescued the baby and brought her
to the station. The child is under two months. We saved the life of the
child and took her to the public welfare of the FCT.”
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VEry sad...i am speechless on what to say about this ...very sad indeed.
Drop a comment...thanks!
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