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Nigeria's long list of curious deaths
THE list of suspected political killings in Nigeria, since the return of civil rule in 1999, is long; very long. In all the cases, neither the killers, nor their sponsors have been brought to justice.
There were also the unresolved murders of Mr. Victor Nwankwo, younger brother of prominent politician, Arthur; Ogbonnaya Uche and Theodore Agwatu, among others.
The killers of Ige literally waltzed into his home as his security operatives were conveniently away. Some of the assassins, at gun-point, herded the then minister's household into a room. The others made for his room where they shot the 71 year-old prominent politician, also a former governor and watched him die.
On February 6, 2004, unknown assailants killed Chief Aminasoari K. Dikibo, the former national vice-chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was killed on his way to a zonal party meeting in Asaba, Delta State.
On March 7, 2004, Chief Philip Olorunnipa, the chairman of the Kogi State Electoral Commission, was killed in his home in Adumo Kabba. Four days earlier, Luke Shigaba, the former Bassa LGA chairman, was also killed.
Also on October 12, 2004, a prominent aviation activist and former president of the National Association of Pilots and Engineers, Jerry Agbeyegbe, was shot and killed.
The killers of Barnabas Igwe, the Onitsha branch chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and his wife, Abigail, in Onitsha on September 1, 2000, were spectacular in their brutality.
They blocked the couple's car at a busy intersection in the early evening, then dealt each several machete cuts and shot them repeatedly. The killers then lay their bodies on the road and rode over them with a car before escaping into the dusk. Abigail was pregnant.
On August 15, 2002, the chairman of the PDP in Kwara State, Ahmad Pategi, was killed. On September 24 of the same year, Isyaku Mohammed, chairman of the then newly-registered United Nigeria People's Party in Kano State, was also murdered.
A common feature of all these cases was that nothing was taken from the victims to indicate a motive of robbery. All the victims also had strong political views or affiliations to justify the tag of political assassination.
And, barely three weeks after an unsuccessful murder attempt on a governorship aspirant of the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD) in Plateau State, Arc. Pam Dung Gyang, another contender for the office, Mr. Jesse C. Aruku, was on July 2, this year, found dead.
The body of Aruku, a former Chairman of Bassa Local Council, was found in a bush between his council area and Kabong in the Jos North.
Aruku's final journey had begun the previous Friday, after a political rally of the party held in his council. He returned home at about 8 p.m., changed into a casual dress of a white vest and fez cap bearing the insignia of Governor Joshua Dariye.
He was said to have told his wife that he wanted to go and pick his car from the mechanic. On his way, he was abducted by a gang of unknown persons and taken to an unknown destination. His wife became apprehensive when he had not turned up at about 10 p.m. and called his mobile telephone.
The phone kept ringing without his answering, prompting her to alert her husband's political associates, who immediately raised a search team to look for him. Meanwhile, the wife kept calling the number throughout the night, but to no avail.
However, at about 10 a.m. on Saturday, when she repeated the call, a man reportedly picked the phone and told her: "Look, your husband is safe, any time we finish with him, we will return him to you".
Throughout Saturday, his associates were looking for him, until Sunday, when a Fulani herdsman saw the dead body in the bush and alerted the people around.
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