It takes a fellow with vicious and extremely brutal guts to hire and retain murderers from Hell; to gruesomely kill a fellow human being. For such people with a heart of steel, killing an innocent orphan, for no just cause whatsoever, without any hint of emotion or qualms is merely reflexive.
Master Otobong Emmanson Obot, a 17 year old male orphan from Inen Ikot Essien, Oruk-Anam LGA of Akwa Ibom State was on Sunday 22/9/2019 murdered in cold blood for an offence he didn’t commit. A promising young boy and an SS3 student, he was. Orphaned at age 14; full of life and hopeful for a brighter tomorrow.
Causing the death of another person intentionally or otherwise is reprehensible. But deliberately planning and executing the death, by subjecting the victim to insufferable indignities preliminary to the death itself, is utterly terrifying and most abhorring. Such fate befell young Master Otobong Obot in the early hours of Sunday 22/9/2019. He was made to face death up close. He suffered the pains and pangs of death through torture in the hands of the hired executioners.
Master Otobong is said to have been mercilessly subjected to a stress position for such a longer period of time from about 2:40 am to 4:50 am; with his two legs tied, he was hung and suspended headlong. He cried, panted and gasped for life but to no avail. He saw death with its bare fangs menacingly staring and threateningly beckoning on him to pass on. English Language does not seem to have such “adjective” that sufficiently qualify such manner of gruesome death that only a cruel human being, gripped with an evil spirit can enact.
With their terror filled presence in the dead of the night, the murderers meant business and the eyewitnesses were helpless to help. Otobong’s death was mindlessly executed. He was mocked, slapped, beaten and given truncheon kicks. The marks and wounds on his body capture and tell the story better. Nails were smitten and driven into his head through the skull to the brain; pins and needles were pushed and screwed into his body; his two eyeballs were gouged out of their sockets and plucked away and his pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears.
Master Otobong in the throes of death wriggled and writhed in pains. He cried, fought and battled with death in vain. He succumbed to its cold hands. In cold blood, he died and his corpse was removed from the stake, taken away and dumped in the bush, on an old footpath for soldier ants to feast, thence his uncle moved it to the morgue.
A certain Mrs Penninah Saturday Jack is being accused of being the mastermind of the appalling and dreadful murder of the young lad. Mrs Jack is said to be a younger sister to Hon (Barr) Emmanuel Enoidem, an erstwhile commissioner in the state and presently the PDP National Legal Adviser. Mrs Jack hails from Etim Ekpo LGA but is married in Inen Ikot Essien, the same community with the deceased.
It is alleged that Mrs Jack had two weeks earlier before the fateful day, accused Master Otobong Obot of stealing her salad cabbage, known botanically as “vnepum africana” and locally as “afang”. The allegation, Master Otobong is said to have profusely and vehemently rebutted even unto death. Mrs Jack is said to have been irked by the innocence maintained by Master Otobong and a forthnight thereafter, in the unholy hours of the black-letter day, some hired killers with definite instruction “to treat Master Otobong’s fuck up and delete him without cracking a gun for him” broke into the thatched mud house where he was sleeping, roused him from sleep, took him away and murdered him in cold blood.
Members of the community were said to be enraged at such heinous murder of the orphan and resultantly went to the neighbouring Police Station at Ikot Uboh village to make the report after Mrs Jack had gone there earlier in time to make her statement in a manner exculpatory of her.
Mrs Jack wasn’t quite lucky at the station as the villagers there and then accused her of killing the innocent boy, given the circumstances of the case and particularly by the very reason that in the early hours of the fateful day, she had put a call through to the youth president of the community requesting to be congratulated for dealing with “the thief”. She was accordingly arrested by the Police.
According to an eyewitness, one Elder Godwin Enoidem, another brother to Mrs Jack, at the station, assaulted Mr Ofonimeh Elijah Udobot, an uncle to late Master Otobong, threatening to cause his dismissal from the State Civil Service if he doesn’t hands off the case. Corroborating the information, the uncle himself recounted how Elder Enoidem, using his staff, repeatedly hit his face, remarking that Hon (Barr) Emmanuel Enoidem is aware and in charge of the case; that a fly can not challenge an elephant to a duel.
What manner of audacity!
On the 26/9/2019, the matter was transferred to the Divisional Police Station at Ikot Ibritam, the headquarters of Oruk Anam LGA, where the DPO is said to have released the suspected murderer, the same day he got the case file.
The grieving uncle has gone into hiding as a result of threats to his life from the family of the suspect. They are daring him to make a hiss about the case and get his head chopped off. The community is deserted for fear of the unknown as Mrs Jack is said to be alleging that her brother is going to send truck-load of military officers to arrest the youths of the community.
A case of murder has been reported to the Police High Command and it remains to be seen whether the known suspect is indeed culpable for the law to take its course. Or has justice gone to sleep?
By Uyaokam Ekaete form Akwa Ibom
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