Joe Effiong, Uyo
AnieFIok Otobong Jumbo, wife of a soldier posted to Uta Ewa beach, in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, has accused the Nigeria Army of killing her husband.
The husband, Oto Udo Jumbo, 36, a native of Atan Ikpe clan in Edemaya clan still in the same Ikot Abasi council, is now lying stone cold in the morgue after he was allegedly dragged out of his house and hacked to death by four soldiers who usually guide the Uta Ewa beach.
Aniefiok Jumbo, 26, and mother of three children, told Daily Sun that she has gone to the beach at about 10:00 pm on Tuesday, March 26, to ease herself, since most, if not all the residents of the beach normally use it as their toilet.
She said when she approached the area, a soldier, who had been making love advances to her, told her to turn back that she should not ease herself at the beach.
“I told him everyone in the area uses the beach as their toilet even before we were born. He threatened to beat me up if I wouldn’t leave.
“An officer senior to him, had to intervene and asked me to go further to ease myself. But while I was in the process of easing myself, the soldier in question pointed his halogen torchlight at me. I screamed at him because I was naked.
But instead of putting off the torchlight, he rather came over and beat me and pushed me into the water. All of them, four solider came over to harass me. But I also talked back at them because they had no right to have done that to me, I am a married woman. I had no reason whatsoever to have succumbed to his love advances,” she said.
She said while she was till at the beach, she was surprised to see the soldier drag her husband, down the beach whereas she had not yet even got home to explain what happened to him.
“My husband was not around when I went to ease myself at the beach. He had travelled to Aba to pay for goods, which is cement which he sells there at the beach. But the soldiers left me and went to drag out my husband who just returned from a journey and began to beat him with the butts of their guns claiming that I insulted them as such they would deal with him.
They beat, teargassed him and pushed him into the sea. They did not allow any body to help him out. It is only when he had died, they allowed the youths to bring him out from the water. By then, it was too late. He was foaming in his mouth and nostrils.
“We raised an alarm; some naval officers came and we narrated what happened to them. They picked the body to naval clinic and it was confirmed dead,” she said.
However, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) for Akwa Ibom Police Command, Odiko MacDon (DSP), said he was not fully briefed on the matter, even though he said the case was being investigated.
The spokesman for the 2nd Brigade, Nigerian Army under which is Ibagwa Army Barracks, Major Bashir Jajira, who confirmed the incident however put a lie to the account of the family.
“It is very unfortunate that the man in question died. What actually happened was that on that night, it was at very odd hour that some women went to defecate at night in the military protected area so they were chased away to another place. But they went back and now brought that man probably to help them to defecate.
“He was also chased away; and in the process of escaping, there is water in that area, he dived into the water maybe to swim across and he drowned. It was not that the man was harassed or shot. Probably, he was drunk, base on my findings, because I wasn’t there on ground, that is what happened,” Jajira said.