By Peter Emeraghi
“Better days ahead” was the last post by Chikezie Amaranna, a staff of Next Cash and Carry stores in the Jahi District of Abuja, on his Facebook wall on July 3, 2017. Unfortunately, the young man’s dream of better days was cut short less than one week after as fate played a cruel one on him, and he met his untimely death.
Amaranna was allegedly stabbed to death by his friend, neighbour and former colleague at work, Chibuzor Nwafor, on July 9, 2017, following a disagreement between them over electricity connection in their residence at Jahi 1, a slum settlement in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The incident has left too many people in agony: family members, friends, co-workers and the entire neighbourhood, are still at grief.
A close friend of the deceased, Ifeanyi Osondu, who spoke to Daily Sun on the tragic incident, described the death of Amara, fondly called Eze Nnunnu by many, as a very agonizing and regrettable incident.
Osondu said that he and Amara had left their place of work around 9:20pm only to get to Amara’s compound and see his apartment in darkness while the rest of the neighbours had electricity.
His story: “We left work after our shift that night and got to Amara’s house; he saw that his house was in darkness, so he walked up to his nearest neighbour, Chibuzor, and inquired why his house didn’t have power. Chibuzor told him that he (Chibuzor) cut his apartment off from the electricity source because a new neighbour was ‘tapping’ electricity from his room.”
Witnesses said that Amara asked Chibuzor to go and fix the light immediately, but the latter insisted he would not take orders from Amara particularly if he continued raising his voice at him.
Osondu continued: “I asked Amara to calm down and take it easy, because I saw how angry both of them were. I already knew where the argument was leading to, so I asked Amara to follow me down the street to buy suya for us to eat; Amara then told Chibuzor to fix the light before he returned home. We went out and got suya to eat, at about 10pm, but we came back home and the light was still not connected. So, Amara got angrier and went and confronted Chibuzor; they started exchanging words and it became a fight. Some neighbours that were present joined me and we tried to separate them.
“It was more difficult than I thought, because both of them were angry and that made the separation even harder. We finally got them to calm down. I took Amara to his doorstep, while the other people took Chibuzor to his doorstep. I opened the door and pushed him inside but, unknown to me, there was a back door in the house. Amara took off with a shovel through the back door and ran after Chibuzor for the second time that night.”
The witness said he could not tell how Chibuzor also left his room, but the next thing they saw was the two young men locked in another round of fighting: “before I could turn around, I saw Amara running back to me. He was mumbling, ‘See what Chibuzor did to me,’ he muttered it a number of times before he fell down.
“Chibuzor had stabbed him with a knife; I think about three times, I am not so sure.”
Osondu explained that the dastardly incident left the neighbours in shock for a while and because it was already late in the night, it was difficult to get the victim to hospital.
According to him, “Every cab man we saw refused to carry him after seeing blood and an unconscious body. We finally found a man who was on his way from vigil; he agreed to help us. We bundled him into the car and went to the hospital; but around 4am or thereabouts, I got a call from the hospital that my friend had died.”
It was difficult to ascertain whether the duo had any other issue between them before that fateful day.
However, a neighbour who pleaded not to be named said that it was despicable for Chibuzor to have paid Amara back in a bad coin, after the deceased had assisted him in the past: “Chibuzor cannot go free with this crime; even after Amara helped him and lent him money, he still went ahead to kill him. It is very sad, imagine your own neighbour having so much hatred for you. I just hope he is punished in the end.”
The suspect was initially in custody at the Mabushi Police Station, but Daily Sun could not confirm whether he had been moved to the FCT Command at press time.
Moreover, the FCT Police Command Public Relations Officer, Mr. Anjuguri Manzah, declined to comment on the issue because he was yet to get details of the case.
Nevertheless, the lofty dreams of the young man especially his ambition of pursuing a successful career in the Nigerian Air Force, have gone with the winds with his untimely demise.