By Job Osazuwa
On Sunday, November 14, a Lagos-based journalist, Mr. Dickson Okafor, had gone to church to praise and thank God for His grace upon him and his household.
It was like a normal day for him, and the beginning of another new week. He had no premonition of what unkind fate had in stock for him later on the same day.
He escaped death by the whiskers, having been robbed, wounded and left in the dark to writhe in debilitating pain, in the pool of his own blood. For fear of being attacked too, passersby took to their heels and abandoned him to his fate.
As gathered, immediately he returned from church service on that fateful Sunday, he began to prepare to attend a social gathering. And by 1pm, he hit the road to Nnobi Street, Aguda, Surulere area of Lagos State. He bade his family members goodbye and assured them that he would return home as early as possible.
Even if a soothsayer had told him that there was danger ahead, Okafor would have waved it off without a second thought. He would probably have called the news bearer a prophet of doom. It was unknown to him that the agents of death were lurking around his route, waiting to pounce on him.
Getting to Nnobi Street, without any hitch, he presided over Ehime Mbano community’s meeting. He is the chairman of his town’s men’s association in Lagos, whose members hail from Imo State. By 7pm the meeting was over. Being the man at the helm of affairs, Okafor declared the meeting closed and everyone exchanged pleasantries and banters, and departed for their various destinations.
It was learnt that all the townsmen safely got to their destinations, except their chairman. Anyway, since there was no untoward phone call or message from any member that attended the gathering, they all assumed that everyone was safe and they all went to their various places of work the following Monday morning.
But Mrs. Beatrice Okafor was not herself all through the night. She told the reporter that she was pacing between their living room and bedroom all through the night, hoping that her husband would soon return. Her worries were not unconnected to the fact that her husband’s telephone lines were switched off. In fact, she said that sleep took flight when it was about midnight with the reality that her dear husband was not back home and nothing was heard from her.
According to her, the night appeared longer than usual, even as thousands of evil and frightening thoughts raced through her fragile mind. She feared that the worst might have happened to the journalist.
As early as 6am on Monday, November 15, she said she went to his office in Kirikiri area of the state, to find out if the man could have gone there to sleep in order not to keep late night or perhaps for an urgent assignment that needs to be executed without distraction.
But to her greatest shock, those who received her told her the man has not been seen near the office premises in the last few days.
Thrown into confusion, Mrs. Okafor began to make frantic calls to everyone close to her missing husbands. Dickson’s colleagues, other family members within and outside Lagos. She also went to check him at the Nnobi Street to find out if he got there the previous day. She was informed that her husband attended the meeting and left just like every other person.
She said that she ran to the nearest police station to lodge a complaint. She was assured that she would be contacted if anything was heard of the missing journalist. But she said that words from the police were not assuring in anyway to her. While she waited and hoped for good news from her husband, everyone remained apprehensive.
She said that some persons had suggested to her to check morgues in the state in case the man might have been killed by assailants or involved in an accident, and his body deposited there.
However, a telephone call came to his office from Ajeromi Ifelodun General Hospital on the third day – November 17, informing that Dickson was admitted there after he was picked up by the roadside by the police. The caller announced that the armed robbery’s victim just came out from coma and was recuperating. The receiver excitedly went to town with the good news.
Like the speed of light, Mrs. Okafor raced down to the hospital after she was informed of the latest development concerning her husband. She said that her joy knew no bounds when she met her husband alive, though brutalised.
According her, her husband was attacked while on his way from the meeting on that fateful Sunday. He had boarded a commercial bus going towards Ijesha, enroute Mile Two, but unknown to him that it was armed robbers’ bus.
While they tried to collect all his valuables in the bus that night, a fisticuffs ensued between the robbers and the journalist. Before anyone could say Jack, the evil men descended on Dickson, beating him blue and black.
Then they dispossessed him of his money, his mobile telephone and other valuables on him. It was gathered that frightened passersby at the scene took to their heels.
Dickson has since been transferred to a private health facility for comprehensive examination. And he is recovering fast.
Okafor, who described his encounter with the robbers as close shave with death, thanked his colleagues and everyone who contributed in one way or the other while the search for him lasted.
He specially commended police operatives, who wasted no time in coming to his rescue while he struggled with death in the cold of the night. He described the swift response by the police as a divine intervention, saying that he might have been dispatched to the graves behind that same night.
When his colleagues visited him at the hospital in Festac Town on November 18, he was in high spirits, although the effects of the attacks were still visible.