Anigbo, a barber is
the latest victim of mob attack. He was beaten, killed and burnt around a popular relaxation centre in
Apo, Abuja.When
Chukwudi Orji bade his friend, Ikechukwu Anigbo, good bye as he left
the relaxation centre, he never knew, that was the last time he would be
speaking to him.
30 minutes after Ikechukwu left the spot, Orji
received news of violence involving some motorcyclists, but he brushed
it aside. Daily Trust on Sunday gathered that it was when Orji got home
at about 11p.m, that he learnt that his friend, Anigbo was the victim
of the violence.
“I
saw the fire, but I did not know that someone was inside. There was
smoke everywhere; there was no way you would have known that there was
someone in the fire, except you were there or somebody told you about
it,” he said.
The fair skinned man, who was in his early 30s and
from Aku in Enugu State, is a victim of jungle justice, but his friends
insist that he was a barber, making an honest living. They maintained
that he was killed out of sheer wickedness.
Daily
Trust gathered that a quarrel had ensued between Anigbo and the owner
of a motorcyclist over N10 “change,” he was supposed to have collect
after paying his fare.
None of the motorcyclists, traders,
hawkers and guards at the old London Lane, where the incident occurred
agreed to speak to our reporter, but it was alleged that during the
quarrel, the motorcyclist attracted his colleagues to the scene by
shouting “thief”.
The mob that gathered following the alarm
collected tyres from a vulcanising workshop near the scene and set the
deceased on fire, said Ezema Virginus Chukwudike, the taskforce chairman
of Abuja Spare Parts Dealers Association, Apo.
He described the
death as one too many, adding that the excesses of motorcyclists in
satellite towns within the territory need to be curbed.
Chukwudike,
popularly known as Oracle of God, said “when news of the incident
spread, people became angry. They wondered why the motorcyclists would
burn an innocent man. Even the man who volunteered to carry the corpse
after he had been killed, was chased away.”
He said this is not the first time that motorcyclists are killing someone over a paltry sum of money.
“A
similar thing happened in Kabusa, when a boy was stabbed because of
change. Another man was killed on Wumba road. The same change issue led
to the death of a man in Damagaza. In his case, after he was killed,
they kept him near a river until the next day,” he said.
Chukwudike said the last time such an incident occurred in the area, the
traders protested and that it took the intervention of riot policemen
to bring the situation under control.
He added: “Because the
motorcyclists knew what they did, they boycotted this route from Sunday
evening until policemen were deployed to the area.”
Azeez
Akinola, Anigbo’s boss at the barbershop, corroborated Chukwudike story,
saying the attitude of motorcyclists in the area is a cause for
concern.
Akinola who lives around the area where the late Anigbo
lived, said he and two other people rushed out of their houses when they
received news of the incident, but that the motorcyclists at Kabusa
junction refused to take them to the scene.
Akinola who had
worked with Anigbo for more than four years in a small barbershop at
NEPA Junction, Apo, said it took them a longtime to find a motorcycle to
convey them.
He said when they arrived the scene, they saw
several people with sticks, but that they did not understand the
magnitude of what had happened until someone pointed to the corpse of
Anigbo in the fire.
“I could not believe it. There were heaps of
iron treads from the burnt tyres on his body,” Akinola fought back tears
as he shared his experience.
Orji, who was with him at the garden before the incident, said he has not been able to get over the incident.
“If I had known about it on time, I would have tried to save him because he was innocent,” he said.
Jonathan
Okwe, who said he also left the relaxation spot at about 11p.m, on the
day the incident occurred, said he was shocked to see human legs in a
fire by the roadside.
He added that there were several
motorcyclists around the scene and that he had to quickly found his way
out of the area. “The boy was fair and handsome,” he said.
Akinola
on his part continued; “He was very gentle’’. Speaking in Pidgin, he
said, “if small wound touch am, he go treat am for more than one week.”
“I.K.
can’t ride a bicycle, talk less of motorcycle. Because of fear, he
refused to learn driving despite the fact that they were many people
around to teach him,” he said.
He said the matter was reported at
the Apo Police Station, where he wrote a statement before police
officers took the corpse to a mortuary.
When contacted, the
spokesperson of the FCT police command, ASP Anjuguri Manzah said, “there
was an early morning disagreement between two opposing groups that
could have resulted in a clash but it was averted by the timely
intervention of anti-riot police personnel.”
Chukwudike said
government should stop motorcyclists from arming themselves with
daggers. “Why should government allow them to move around with daggers
unchallenged?” he asked.
There are several versions of the
incident, while some insist that the late Anigbo did not commit any
crime, some alleged that he attempted to snatch the motorcycle he rode
to the junction but was overpowered by the motorcyclists.