Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
The kinsmen of Ogbonnia Moses of Ibuhubu village, Umuchu, Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State are puzzled and in dilemma, wondering how to unravel the cause of his death, his wife and 11 of his 12 children, who died mysteriously, in sequence.
Even more troubling is the fact that the only surviving son of the 26-year-old graduate of Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe, Anambra state, Emmanuel Ifeanyi Moses has allegedly disappeared after his graduation last year due to fear of death in his family.
Mrs. Chinwe Onyeka, his aunt, told Sunday Sun that sometime last year, Emmanuel called on the phone and said that he would not return to the community again, after losing his siblings and parents. He said that nobody should bother ask after him. Onyeka has since been worried about whether he is alive as nobody has heard from him since last year.
Sunday Sun gathered that the family had been struck blows by death, especially after several of the children had attained adulthood.
Moses and his wife had 12 children who lovingly tried to raise them as they hoped for a bright future. But that hope became short lived as 10 of the couple’s children died in sequence, leaving only two of the older sons, namely, Onyedikachi Francis Moses, and Emmanuel. But in the early hours of a certain day in 2008, their parents died in mysterious circumstances. The couple were said to have gone to bed in their house at Ibuhubu village, Umuchu and never woke-up.
Expectedly, the death of the couple raised questions that have remained unanswered till date, as their kinsmen in the community not could fathom the cause of such death, a situation that sympathizers noted had never been experienced in the area.
A relation of the deceased couple, Onyeka, explained that there was no reason to suspect any foul play in the deaths of the couple as they were not known to have had any dispute or serious quarrel with anyone in the area. With foul play eliminated, tongues began to wag as to the probable cause of the several deaths in the family.
Following the demise of the parents, Onyeka, their aunt invited Onyedikachi to live with her family at Odume Layout near the commercial town of Onitsha, while Emmanuel was still in school. But tragedy once again struck and Onyedikachi was found dead on November 22, 2016, in a house at No. 19 Mbakaogu Street, Odume Layout, Obosi, Idemili North Local Government Area, Anambra State and subsequently buried on 29th November, 2016.
He was stabbed on various parts of his body by unknown persons and he subsequently died from the fatal injuries inflicted on him.
Determined to get to the root of the murder of her nephew and secure justice, Onyeka enlisted the help of the policemen at Uruowulu Police Post, Odume, Obosi, who traced the corpse to the house of a man, who was consequently arrested.
The same day, the matter was transferred to Awada Police Station, but rigour and stress involved in pursuing the case left the hapless woman drained, especially as the policemen handling the matter extorted her.
“The police has even made the whole thing difficult for me to seek justice,” she said. As if that was not enough, Onyeka lamented that the whereabouts of the only surviving member of Moses family, Emmanuel, who graduated last year were unknown.
“He called on phone the day he was graduating from school that he was afraid to come home as he had lost everybody in the family and had nobody to come to. That was the last time we heard from him or sighted him. We don’t know his whereabouts till date. No trace or contact on how to locate him”, Mrs. Onyeka lamented.
Left with no other option, she has appealed to the Inspector General of Police, security agencies, human rights organizations and other non-governmental agencies to persuade the man in whose house Onyedikachi’s corpse was found, to urgently explain the circumstances surrounding his death. She bemoaned the fact that her poverty has prevented her from pursuing the matter to a logical conclusion.
A police source in Awada Police Station, who doesn’t want to be mentioned confirmed that the murder of Onyedikachi was reported to the station and some arrests were made and the case charged to court and has been pending in court.