Mrs. Ema Benjamin Solomon Peter sat weeping
uncontrollably. Even her elder brothers and sisters who were by her side to
comfort her could not help pouring out their own doses of tears.
Anguish
enveloped the scene, if not the entire Ediende clan of Abak Local Government
area of Akwa Ibom State where a police corporal, Mr. Benjamin Solomon Peter was
found dead on his farmland.
Most people in
the Ikot Oku Obara village, where the policeman hailed from, believe Solomon
was killed on Tuesday last week by some people from Manta village, where the
farmland was said to be allocated.
Working on
that assumption, the youths of Ikot Oku Obara, Ediene, went into frenzy on
Wednesday when the corpse was found. They marched into Manta and destroyed
everything they could lay their hands on. Houses, economic trees, livestock and
merchandise were their targets. They only stopped when the police began to
scare them away by firing into the air.
The distraught
Mrs. Solomon told Daily Sun that her husband, who was serving at the Police A
Division, Uyo, had told her that he was going to their farm located at Manta
village to tend some crops on Tuesday afternoon.
She couldn’t
go with him because she is heavily pregnant with their second child, the first
being about one-and-half years old.
“When he did
not return home, I thought that he must have dropped the farm implements
somewhere and gone to work since he was on permanent night duty. I had expected
him in the morning but till afternoon, we didn’t see him. So people decided to
organise a search party only to find him dead on the same farmland on which he
went to work,” the 30-year old widow said as tears cascaded down her cheeks.
She said her
husband was not a troublesome person but a gentle guy who had a humble
beginning in life. She noted that her husband lost his parents at a tender age,
and as such, was struggling to educate himself and take care of his family.
The wife
informed that she was told that the husband had a quarrel with some people from
Manta before leaving for the farm which is also situated at Manta, and as such
wouldn’t know whether there was any link between the quarrel and his death.
“He was a
second year economics student at the University of Uyo. Now, they have killed
him, leaving me here with nothing. I was trying to learn sewing, but when I got
pregnant, he told me to discontinue the training till after delivery. Now how
am I going to manage?” she asked rhetorically and burst into another bout of
weeping while her elder brothers, who had maintained some stoic mien initially,
loudly chorused the wailing.
The deceased
policeman’s cousin, Evangelist Godwin Peter, who said he was informed of
Benjamin’s death at his station and had to rush home immediately, corroborated
the quarrel angle. But he stressed that Benjamin was a peaceful man who would
never hurt a fly.
“In my
absence, he was always there to take care of the family. I don’t know why
anybody would kill him and leave the family in this distress,” Godwin said.
He added
another angle to the story. According to him, last year, the people of Manta
had killed another Ediene son for no just cause, adding that the recent
recurrence might have provoked the youths to storm Manta for revenge even though
they never killed anybody on their protest mission.
But the people
of Manta had a different story altogether to tell when Daily Sun visited the
sleepy but now ravaged community on Friday. The spokesman for the community, Mr
Udo Udo Akpan, debunked the allegation that the policeman was killed in a
farmland located in Manta, stressing that Benjamin might have been killed by
his own kinsmen because the farmland in question is located in Ediene. In his
words, the controversial land was a disputed land in Ikot Obong Ediene.
“This is not
the first time Ediene people have accused us of killing their people. Last
year, they said we killed one of their people and they came here to kill one of
our sons, Akparawa Nse Udo-Udo Ikpa, and burnt his corpse here in the village.
We did not do anything.
“There is
hardly a time that Manta person would go to Ediene and want to return home late
that he or she would not be harassed by Ediene youths. Early this year, they
tried to kill one Edet Benson Udo. They injured him and he passed out only to
be revived later. The matter had been reported to the police. But each time
Ediene people molest us, they usually formulate allegations against us to
warrant their aggression, but none of those allegations has ever been proved by
the law enforcement agencies,” Udo Udo Akpan lamented.
He said Manta
is a peaceful community that would not want to take the law into their hand. He
informed that his community would not even plan a reprisal attack against
Ediene “because we believe that the law would take its full course in the
latest development.”
The spokesman
for Manta village vehemently debunked the allegation that the policeman was
killed by Manta people because of the fight that ensued between him and one
Manta native, Akpan Offong Otu.
Akpan Offong
Out, whose family compound was burnt down by the Ediene youths on Wednesday,
told our correspondent that there was a minor automobile accident on Tuesday
where a car rammed into four motorcycles parked by some commercial motorbike
operators by the side of the road in Ikot Oku Obara Ediene.
“We, the other
cycle riders, confronted the driver, who pleaded with us that his car steering
wheel locked up. He even agreed to repair the damaged motorcycles.
“But while
this was going on, Benjamin arrived at the scene on his motorcycle and told us
the commercial cyclists that we didn’t know the highway code.
“I then
challenged him that, even as a policeman that he claimed to be, he never had a
number plate on his motorcycle. That was my only offence. He came over and
slapped me three times while I was still sitting on my bike. It was when he
beat me the fourth time that I retaliated and we fought. And one of Manta sons,
Kufre Elijah Moses, who witnessed him trying to kill me, stepped in to stop the
fight. But Benjamin equally beat Kufre too, threatening that he would make sure
that two of us slept in the cell the next day. After that he rode his bike away
and I went on with my business.
“We didn’t
even know that he was going to the farm, and we don’t even know where his farm
is. We came back to the village to sleep that day in our respective houses. I
was taking my wife the next day to her shop which is located at Ediene when I
saw a crowd of youths with weapons. I almost stopped but instinct urged me to
move away. I didn’t even know they were heading for our community to burn down
houses. Maybe if I had stopped, they could have killed me and my wife on the
spot.”
He took our
correspondent round their family compound which the Ediene youths alleged burnt
down. The invading youths also destroyed economic trees and killed livestock
such as pigs, poultry and goats which he said he was rearing as a business.
The Ediene
youths allegedly also descended on Kufre Elijah Moses’s family compound,
burning and destroying everything in sight, thus rendering the inhabitants,
including aged parents, homeless. The nearby buildings, belonging to Elder
Augustine Iwok Asanganeng, a retired police inspector, and that of Sunday Okon
Akpandem, were not also spared. Nearly all shops in the community were looted
by the youth said to have arrived on more than 60 motorcycles.
The two
ex-servicemen, while lamenting their losses to our correspondent, appealed to
the state to ensure that the law runs its full course in bringing the culprits
to book.
For now, the
two communities live in anxiety and suspense of further attacks or reprisals.
The owners of the property destroyed are left in anguish. The policeman is
lying stone cold in the mortuary while his family has been left in quandary.
Right now,
Manta community is being heavily guarded by the police, even as the police in
Abak say they have not arrested anybody yet in connection with the death of the
policeman. But some of those who allegedly committed the arson have now been
detained, according to the police.
The state
police headquarters, through the Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Etim
Dickson, a Deputy Superintendent of the Police (DSP), has confirmed the
incident. But the question still remains, who killed Corporal Benjamin Solomon
Peter in his farm on Tuesday?
Source:
sunnewsonline
No comments:
Post a Comment