“Who will take care of my children? They have terminated the future of my children? Warri soldiers have done their worst!”
This was the cry of Mrs Eunice Okwaraji, whose husband was allegedly felled by a soldier’s stray bullet last Saturday during the botched monthly sanitation exercise in Warri, Delta State.
The agony of Mrs Okwaraji, who had just joined the long list of widows, would touch anyone with human feeling. When the Saturday Tribune visited the family’s residence at Ubua Street, Warri, the place looked like a ghost town.
From the entrance of the flat occupied by the Okwarajis, the atmosphere was sombre. Friends, relations and neighbours took turns to console her.
The late Valentine Okwaraji, fondly called ‘Shabba’, was until that fateful day full of life. He was expecting his third child, which he hoped would be a boy (having had two daughters already).
But up till the time Saturday Tribune visited the deceased’s home, there had been no official report or message sent to the family on how Valentine died. The information the disconsolate wife had received so far was got from her husband’s colleagues who witnessed the incident.
In tears, Mrs Okwaraji recounted how her husband left for his shop at the Tools and Spare Parts Market, along Warri/Sapele Road, that day. He had instructed her to buy some fuel (apparently for their generator, to be used later that day) before his arrival. But he never returned.
Mrs Okwaraji said she started suspecting that something terrible had happened when she saw some relations and her colleagues coming into their apartment in twos and threes that Saturday afternoon.
“That Saturday morning, he was very fit and fine. He left home after 9:00 a.m. As he was going, he called me that I should, please, get fuel because he would be coming back in time. I said okay. When it was around 3:00 p.m., my eldest brother came here and I felt it was strange. So, I said: this time that you came, hope there is no problem. He said he just came to see me and the children.
I was cooking, but I was almost through. I asked him to wait and eat, but he declined.”
She continued: “Before I knew it, one of my colleagues at work came with her husband. They are from the same state and local government in Imo State as my husband. They said they just came to visit somebody in our neigbourhood. They stayed for about 20 minutes and left. My brother later excused himself to visit somebody nearby. After about 30 minutes, my brother came back.
“Again, I heard a knock; my eldest sister suddenly came around. And I asked her why she did not tell me she was coming; she said she just came to check on us. I asked where her bag was and she said somebody was bringing it. Then there was yet another knock on the door: it was my headmistress at school. She also claimed she only came to see somebody. Then I knew something was wrong, so I screamed: ‘So my mother is dead?’
“I wanted to stand up, but they held me down. I requested for my phone from my brother, to call my husband that something had gone wrong. When I called him, his number did not go through.”
According to her, she was told that some sanitation enforcement officers came to the shop and accused her husband and other traders of not taking part in the cleaning exercise.
Mrs Okwaraji told her sympathisers: “They said there was a fracas and my husband wanted to control the whole issue. At the end of the day, they started shooting in the air. And there was pandemonium. People ran. He (Valentine) also ran. Well, I don’t really know what the devil had in mind; they said the military man followed him until he shot him and he fell.
“They said they rushed him to the Navy Hospital, and because it was gunshot wound, the hospital insisted on seeing a police report before they could treat him.
“From there, he was moved to the Warri Central Hospital where, due to delay in attending to him, he gave up the ghost. They said the bullet hit him on his knee and that he bled profusely until he finally died.”
Asked if her husband was involved in any power tussle in the association of Igbo traders of the market, Mrs Okwaraji said her husband was not involved in any such thing.
“He had no problem with his colleagues in the market. He was not in any shady business deal with anyone as far as I know. He was an easy-going man. They wanted to involve him and I told him to abstain because of me and the children,” she stated.
Corroborating her story, one of Valentine’s colleagues, who did not want his name in print, said: “The case happened at about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. Soldiers came with the environmental people and they shot somebody. Shabba was shot. He was my close neighbour and friend. He was a calm person that hardly had problems with people.
“The soldiers were shooting everywhere as if we were in a war zone. Vehicles were turning back to where they were coming from. The soldiers also brutalised other innocent people.”
Explaining what actually transpired between the deceased and the soldiers, the witness, who is a top executive member of the Igbo traders union of the market, said Shabba was trying to calm frayed nerves of the men in uniform before things went awry.
According to him, when the soldiers were rough-handling people, “Shabba said, ‘Oga, it has not come to this. It’s something that we need wisdom to handle. Just take it easy.’ So many people were talking at the same time, but it was Shabba’s word the soldier picked. He faced him and Shabba ran. He first of all released some bullets into the air and after that, faced Shabba. He (Shabba) took to his heels but it was too late. The (soldier) shot him in his knee and he fell. At a point, he stood up and we bound his bleeding knee and took him to the Navy Hospital; but he was not attended to because there was no police report. At the Warri Central Hospital, after much delay, he passed on.”
When asked if the military authorities had visited the family since the incident, Mrs Okwaraji said: “So far, I’ve not seen any uniformed person coming to condole with me or even explain anything that happened to me.”
Did she have any premonition that her husband might soon be gone, Mrs Okwaraji, a teacher, said she could remember that about two weeks ago, she was restless in the night.
When Saturday Tribune had a phone conversation with a top military officer in Warri on Monday afternoon, on the allegation that one of his men killed an Igbo trader, the army officer absolved his men.
He said: “Soldiers would not go to a market for anything. There was environmental (sanitation), which is a state function, not an army function. The local government chairman, who is acting on behalf of the state, who is the chief security officer of the local government, went to the market. And I don’t know, one of the sanitation officials was mobbed. You need to hear from the chairman because journalists need to balance their stories to let the people know the truth.
“I don’t think anybody has the right to mob sanitation officials. They were beaten up, held hostage and the man was with a team of policemen¬ – not that he went there alone. He called for assistance and our men went there and were able to extricate him and whisk him away from there.
“As I’m talking to you, the unit (army formation) has not received any complaint from anybody about the case and I don’t know where the information is coming from.”
Asked specifically if it was one of his men that killed Okwaraji, he said “I don’t know. Why should they kill anybody? Did you ask the wife whether she was there when the incident happened? She should be able to tell you the particular individual so that she can verify the claim she is making. I’m just hearing the issue for the first time from you.
“I will implore you to see the local government chairman and equally the traders to know what led to what. People don’t just take laws into their hands. What I’m just telling you now is just because you are my friend. You are my friend and I’m talking to you in my personal capacity and don’t quote me anywhere. The army has a channel of talking.”
On his part, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mr Charles Muka, initially did not reply messages sent to his mobile phone nor pick calls put through to him both on Monday and Thursday. But on Thursday morning, he responded saying, “why not ref 2 d army?”
The caretaker chairman of Owvie Local Government could not be reached as at press time.
The puzzle is in the air. The body of Shabba is said to be lying at the Warri Central Hospital at press time, and tongues are already wagging. Nigerians want to know if the deceased was actually part of an alleged mob manhandling sanitation officers, who were said to be accompanied by armed Mobile Policemen, and why they needed to ask for help from soldiers to get them arrested.
The deceased’s wife is asking the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Muhammed Abubakar, to unravel the mystery and bring culprits to justice as well as provide a future for the children Valentine left behind.
Tribune
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