•Agony in Enugu community over killing of vigilante chief
From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
In the evening of December 31, last year, if anybody had prophesied to Cletus Mbah that he would not see the New Year, he would probably have laughed off the ‘prediction.’
The 52-year-old man was an education supervisor with Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State. He was also the Chairman of Ogwurogwu, Neighbourhood Watch at Onicha Enugu-Ezike community, Enugu State
Up until 10.30pm on December 31, Cletus was alive and well, excitedly waiting for the New Year with several expectations. On December 29, he had bought 300 bags of cement to start a building project. The foundation was to be laid on January 2, and contactors as well as engineers had been mobilised for the project.
But today, he is cold, dead and stiff in the mortuary at Ogrute General Hospital, Enugu-Ezike. Life was snuffed out of him in a most agonising manner in the night of December 31, allegedly by his blood brothers. The deceased was battered to death with an iron rod.
The ugly incident, which cast a pall of darkness on the family, was the fallout of many years of family feud and quarrel over land and wife inheritance, Daily Sun learnt. The saga had defied community interventions.
The children of the deceased and their mother have since run to the home of Rev. Sister Martina Oforka, mystic nun and proprietor, Divine Wounds Orphanage Home at Ogbodu community, Enugu Ezike.
Narrating the incident to Daily Sun, the first daughter of the deceased, Chidera, who claimed she witnessed the whole episode leading to her father’s death, stated:
“It was in the night of December 31 and my mother and two of my siblings had already gone for the 10pm crossover church service at St. Theresa’s Catholic Parish, Onicha-Enugu, leaving me and my sister, Faith, in the house.
“Our father, Cletus was at home too, listening to his radio set outside. About 10:30pm, three of his brothers and a sister (names withheld) stormed our compound in anger. They thought that all of us had gone to church, leaving Papa at home. But they didn’t know I was inside with my sister. Immediately, they ordered my father to surrender the key to a particular room in the general family house, but my father told them that he didn’t understand what they were saying.
“They wanted to drag him into the room and probably snuff life out of him there but my dad stood his ground outside. They took the wine he was drinking forcefully from him and poured it on the ground, threw away his radio set and collected a bamboo stick nearby and started hitting him. When my daddy saw that their mission was murderous, he decided to save his own life by running towards the Neighbourhood Watch Post at Ogwurogwu where he is the chairman. I followed him from a distance.”
She said members of the vigilante operatives could not do anything to save her father from the murderous attack of his brothers. She said it was after he had been murdered that members of the group phoned their general chairman, Christopher Ugwuanyi, who was not around when the incident happened. She said it was when Ugwuanyi arrived that he called for emergency and her dad’s motionless body was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital, Ogrute, where the doctors pronounced him as Brought in Dead (BID).
Nnamdi Mbah, stepbrother to the late Cletus, and son of Cletus’ wife, Victoria, described the family crisis that he claimed led to Cletus’ death.
“My late father, Ossai Mbah, married two wives. The first wife had seven children while my own mother, Victoria, the second wife had two children before Cletus later inherited and married her after our father’s death. When our father, Ossai Mbah, died, my mother was nursing a baby, my sister, Chinenye, who was barely four months old then. She contemplated going back to her father’s family but my stepbrothers rejected her plan. They reasoned that she was young and good to them and planned to inherit her so that she would remain in the family.
“Such practice was obtainable then and my father’s first son, Gabriel, was already married then and that was how the lot to remarry my mother fell on Cletus, my father’s immediate younger brother. That was how Cletus, my elder stepbrother also became my mother’s husband.
“Soon after having two children from the union, Cletus’ brothers suddenly turned against him, telling him to sack my mother and desist from marrying her again. They said they had realised that it was an abomination for one to marry the wife of one’s father. Cletus reminded them that his marriage to my mother was a joint decision and that he had no quarrel with the woman, who already bore two children for him. But his brothers would hear nothing of such. So, a battle line was drawn. What eventually broke the camel’s back was when they said we should share our father’s land.
“They wanted to use the opportunity to deprive Cletus of all his entitlements in the family but those kinsmen, who partook in the sharing ruled otherwise. The family clan, kindred and people at the community level tried to settle the matter, but their major anger was that Cletus always emerged victorious anytime their case was tabled for arbitration. My mother had five children for Cletus and they did their worst by killing him,” he said.
Victoria, widow of the deceased, had lost so much weight since the incident happened. She said there was a time she went on exile to Benue State with her baby at the peak of the crisis with her husband’s brothers.
“I wanted to go home when my first husband died but they wouldn’t agree to that. That was how Cletus married me and it was not against their wish. My husband loved me and never married any other woman, though he inherited me from his father. But we’ve faced all kinds of maltreatment, rejection and abuse from my husband’s relatives. I didn’t know they had killed him until we got to Ogrute Police Division in the morning and the police broke the news. Till today, we’ve not set eyes on the corpse because the mortician told us that it was my husband’s brothers that deposited his body in the morgue in their name and they would not allow us to see his body.
“I want justice to be done in this matter because even our own lives are not safe anymore. If the police will release the killers of my husband and allow them to go free, my life and that of my children cannot be guaranteed anymore,” she said.
The mystic nun, in whose house the deceased’s family are taking refuge, has threatened to curse anybody who might seek to thwart the cause of justice in the murder of Cletus. She called on the Enugu State Police Command to ensure that diligent investigation and prosecution were carried out in the matter so that the culprits would not go scot-free. She vowed to follow the case both spiritually and physically to ensure that the matter was not swept under the carpet.
She also wanted the deceased’s building completed and his children educated to the university level.
When contacted by the reporter, the traditional ruler of Onicha-Enugu Community, Igwe James Idoko, condemned the killing. He expressed regret that the family members refused to abide by the terms and conditions for peace handed over to them by the town union.
Chairman of the Neighbourhood Watch, Christopher Ugwuanyi, also told the reporter that he was summoned on phone when the incident happened, adding that he met Cletus’ lifeless body at the vigilante post and he had to arrange for an emergency.
Enugu State Police Public Relations Officer, Ebere Amarizu, in a chat with the reporter, also confirmed the killing. He said some arrests had been made in connection with the incident, assuring that the suspects would be charged to court after investigation. He assured of strict professionalism in the matter, even as he disclosed that an autopsy report would be conducted on the deceased to assist the police in their findings.