Gunmen shot dead one Okere Samuel, a father of four and abducted a businessman identified as Sunny Onuenze at an estate in the Army Range area of Igbo-Etche in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State on Saturday, PUNCH Metro learnt on Monday.
Our correspondent gathered that the kidnapped victim, Onuenze, deals in scrap metals in the building material market in Mile 3, Port Harcourt, while Samuel, the dead victim, was a generator mechanic and hailed from Ofeh community in Omuma Local Government Area of the state. Though the cause of the incident could not be immediately ascertained, the widow of the deceased, Mrs Peace Samuel, said her husband on returning from work that fateful day (Saturday, October 26) went out to pump water from the machine.
Speaking to PUNCH Metro on Monday, she explained that thereafter at about 7 pm after pumping the water, her husband turned off the generator and without his shirt, told her he was going for a walk and asked one of the kids to arrange water for him in the bathroom to have a shower that he won’t be long.
The distraught woman said, “So, not up to five minutes, I heard a gunshot. I asked, ‘What happened’? Not even on that our street, the next street. I heard another gunshot. I hurriedly carried my children inside the house and told them maybe their father was hiding wherever he was because of the gunshots and that he would come back,
“I started calling his line. At that initial time, the line was ringing but nobody answered. His phone rang more than six times. My thought was that he didn’t want to pick since he might be hiding so that nobody would hear him.”
“So later, I heard they kidnapped one of our neighbours. Everybody started coming out, all the landlords. I came out again but I didn’t see my husband.”
Mrs Samuel further said, “So, I started telling them I had not seen my husband. Being landlords, everybody said he would come back. So, the woman who they kidnapped her husband was crying.
“I was waiting for him with the kids till past 12 am. One landlord now called me that I should enter inside and that my husband would come back in the morning. Not up to one hour after I went inside, I heard our neighbours’ dogs barking seriously.
“So, I thought he was coming back. Second, I said who knew whether this man was still alive? Or whether they wanted to bring his corpse to his house and run away. I peeped through the window to check if I could see my husband but I did not. So, I went back to the room.”
Continuing, she said, “At about past 5 am, I called my sister who is staying with me to wake up, that I was not comfortable that my husband had not come back, let us go and look for your daddy.
“So we started looking for him near our house, looked around but we did not see him. There is this plot of land close to us, we entered there. It was inside the farm that we saw his corpse. That is how we saw the corpse.”
Fighting back tears, she told our correspondent, thereafter, that the police from Igwuruta Division came to the scene, saying, “Our location is under Etche Police Division. I want to know those who shot him. Let the police help me with an investigation. His children are still young. I alone cater for four kids.”
Our correspondent gathered that the incident was later reported to the Umuebule Police Division in Igbo-Etche and that the corpse of the deceased was removed and deposited in an undisclosed morgue.
On the abducted man, the captors had established contact with the family but it is not clear if a ransom has been demanded.
the picture of the deceased shows blood oozing out from his head as his remains sprawled on a weed-ridden ground.
When contacted, the spokesperson for the state police command, Grace Iringe-Koko, said she had yet to receive a report of the incident but promised to find out and get back to our correspondent.
Iringe-Koko had yet to do so as of the time of filing this report on Monday evening.
