Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Correspondents of The Sun and The Punch newspapers, Mrs. Rose Ejembi and John Charles, on Monday, escaped death by whiskers while they were trying to further gather information from families, colleagues and other relatives of a house wife, Mrs. Rachael Adetsav, who allegedly killed her husband, three children and later stabbed herself to death.
It would be recalled that, on Friday night, Mrs. Adetsav had, at about 8:30p.m, allegedly murdered her entire family after which she stabbed herself to death which prompted the reporters to go out to dig more into the circumstance that led to the abominable murder.
The two reporters, after visiting the Vandeikya Street residence of the deceased family and the school of their children, had gone to the Makurdi Local Government Secretariat, where both husband and wife were working before their death, to gather more information from colleagues and friends.
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At the Secretariat, some of their colleagues and friends who spoke with the reporters, disclosed that the family of the late Nicholas Adetsav were also around and in a meeting with officials of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE).
After speaking with the NULGE Secretary, the reporters walked up to two women who were identified as members of the Adetsav family and sought to have audience with them.
“However, on discovering that we were journalists, one of the women flared up and started accusing all journalists of writing ‘rubbish’ about her family without consulting them.
“She said we could go ahead and continue writing our nonsense but that they as a family would not talk to us.
“To this, we urged her to calm down saying we came to them now to hear their own side of the story since it was the police that first broke the news to the public, in Makurdi, and that we there was no way we would not have reported such story since it happened within our jurisdiction.
“The woman insisted that she would not interact with us because according to her, journalists were the architects of the misinformation and impression the public are having about her family in respect to the sad incidence.
“But when we objected to the assertion by telling her that we took exception to that because we knew nothing about the incidence other than to do our job, the issue resulted to a slight argument which drew the attention of other members of the family and staff of the local government as well as passers-by to the scene.”
In a twinkle of an eye, the family mobilised towards the two reporters with the intention to mob them and even went ahead to dispossess the Punch reporter of his gadget while they were trying to escape the mob action.
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It took the intervention of some members of staff of the Council who whisked The Daily Sun reporter away through a window to the vigilante office while the aggrieved family held the Punch correspondent hostage.
Some officials of NULGE had to join forces with the vigilante group and other public-spirited individuals to whisk the two reporters out of the premises to a safe haven.