Posted by 9jabook.com on October 9, 2009 at 2:44am
He pursued the girl with lunatic passion, but she rebuffed his advances, until he succeeded in defiling her. But even this was not enough for Chinwikpe Ikezie. he made good his threat to kill the girl’s mother, her opposition to his advances. Abiola Azeez reports the gripping tale of a love intention gone wild.0
Was it a case of love gone sour or that of a professed love to one’s heartthrob being turned down or truncated by forces more powerful? No matter the deductions one makes out of the story, the deed has been done, and the deceased has been left for the bereaved to bury.
Okwoyi Isieke Ibeku is a rural village in Umuahia North local government area of Abia State. The usually peaceful community,which is just about three kilometres away from the heart of the state capital, was thrown into mourning, anger, and confusion on Wednesday evening, when the news filtered into the community that a 17 year-old young man had murdered a 35 year old mother in a cassava farm.
Members of the community, particularly the leadership of the youth, gathered and formed a search party. They went after the alleged killer, going from one neighbouring village to another, apparently to deny the murderer any form of escape and to hand him over to law enforcement agents.
Their efforts paid off after much exertion of energy; the alleged murderer, Chinwikpe Okezie, who allegedly committed the heinous crime at about 5 p.m., was tracked down at about 3 a.m. the next day at a bush path in the neighbouring village.
It was discovered that he had his own network of informants to help him immediately he fled the community after committing the dastardly act.
Investigations conducted by FeaturesXtra revealed that Chinwikpe regularly visits Okwoyi Isieke Ibeku, which is his maternal community, where he had lived with his mother in Okwoyi Isieke Ibeku, since the mother was thrown out of her husband’s house unceremoniously.
Another version to the personality of the Chinwikpes had it that his mother had no clear cut means of livelihood and was also a trouble maker in the community.
This, members of the community said, made her husband to wake up one morning and engage the services a truck driver, who helped him to pack her belongings back to her community in the full glare of everyone present at the market square of the village. Her bride price was not paid.
Members of the community, in separate interviews, said that Chinwikpe had, about two years ago, used a cutlass to cut the hand of one of his older kinsmen during a fight. Also, no member of the community could confirm his source of livelihood.
While some said he never attended school, others said he was a drop out, while some others said he was available for any casual labour since he was not known to be on apprenticeship with anyone.
Speaking with FeaturesXtra, a former youth leader of the community, Mr. Ibeabuchi Abarikwu, said the deceased, Chikamnayo Nwakaaku Young (nee Ikpo), aged 35, was a native of Okwoyi Isieke Ibeku in the Umuahia North Local government area of the state, but was married to one Abel Young, an indigene of Amankwu Amiibo in Ubakala community of Umuahia South local government area of the state.
Abarikwu said the couple got separated when the man could not complete the payment of brideprice on Chikamnayo, a development which he said made her to take her children along with her to her father’s house.
”Chikamnayo is a peasant farmer. She had gone to her farm in the morning of the day of the incident. Earlier, before the day of the incident, her assailant, Chinwikpe, had been threatening her, and telling people that he would kill the woman.
“Chinwikpe’s mother is from Okwoyi Isieke Ibeku, just like the deceased. Interestingly, no other girl in the community caught Chinwikpe’s admiration and love except the deceased’s daughter, Chinagorom Young, aged 17. He was trying to befriend the daughter of the deceased, which the deceased vehemently opposed, saying that her daughter is a blood sister to the boy.
She said they couldn’t have any love relationship. Many people are aware of how the girl in question had rejected the advances of the boy on many occasions, yet he continued to trouble the girl.
“Their neighbours even said that the boy had succeeded in raping the girl once, saying their houses are close to one another. So, because the mother refused to consent to their relationship, the boy vowed that he would kill the deceased and also rubbish the girl.
“The deceased had made several complaints to elders of the community, among other people, yet no action was taken, not even calling the boy to order.
“On Wednesday morning, Chikamnayo went to her farm. However, one of her friends in the community, who had a funny feeling, a sense of an impending danger, about her friend, went to her house to warn her about the ominous feeling she had about her. But the woman only met her children, who told their mother’s friend that their mother had gone to the farm.
She, therefore, traced her to the farm, where she met her and told her about the feeling of danger she was having. She succeeded in persuading the deceased to come back to the village with her.
“As fate would have it, the children had nothing to eat at home and the deceased decided to go back to her farm in the evening, at about 5 p.m., to get some vegetables needed to cook a meal for her children. People said immediately she left, they saw Chinwikpe trailing the deceased to the farm.
“When we saw her corpse, already battered by machete cuts in the chest and back, with her face lying on the ground, we learnt that the boy was still lurking around the vicinity. Thus, we alerted everyone in the community.
We also raised a search party. Do you know that it was not until 3 a.m. on Thursday that we eventually caught the boy in a neighbouring community? We then handed him over to the police. The police have since commenced investigations into the matter.”
Asked what he knew of the boy previously, Ibeabuchi said:“Two years ago, when I was the youth leader in the community, Chinwikpe’s elder brother used a machete to cut the arm of one of his elder kinsmen in the community. Then, I warned his people that he should not come back to the community after the incident”, he said.
Describing how they tracked the suspect down in the dead of the night, the youth leader said, “It was a tough experience. When we got the information that he was still hanging around in the area after committing the crime, we mobilised all the youth in the area and searched the community.
We immediately went from Ukome to other neighbouring villages. We also gathered that some people were communicating to him through GSM phones about our journey, which we made with a car, and particularly about my personal involvement in the effort to get him. At a point, we would see him, but he would quickly hide inside the bush on seeing the head lamp of the car we were using to track him.
So, at a point, I advised that we should park the car and go on foot. We then mobilised all the neighbouring communities. Again, he saw us and tried to take cover in the bush. As he was scampering out of the bush at Isieke, we caught him and handed him over to the police.”
Meanwhile, a new twist was added to the story as some sympathisers of the alleged murderer insisted that Chiwinkpe was a friend to the deceased’s daughter and that she even had an issue for the alleged murderer. Speaking on this twist, a native of the village, who wanted to remain anonymous, denied such a story, describing it as a figment of the peddlers’ imagination.
“They were not friends at all. The deceased’s daughter told me that the guy had made several attempts to befriend her, while the girl said she shouted ‘obara Jesus’, meaning blood of Jesus. The guy knows what that means. Yet he continued to pester her. The guy succeeded in raping the girl; the whole village can testify to this. Because of the incident, the girl cried out to the whole community. If they were friends, there would not have been such an alarm.
“Because of this incident, the deceased did not hide the matter but cried out to the whole community over the sacrilegious occurence. The deceased even contacted the guy’s mother with the hope that his mother would caution him. But due to the way the guy was brought up, he never listened to his mother, as his mind was already made up. The elders were still looking into the matter until the killing of the deceased.
If he was innocent or ignorant of what he did, he would not have run away. When he was eventually caught in the bush, he never argued about his offence. He never uttered a word. There was a feeling of disgust and shock because the village saw it as a sacrilege for a boy to have killed someone in his maternal home.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Tribune gathered that the case is being handled by the state Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Umuahia, while the village called on the police to look carefully into the case. They said the boy should not be allowed bail and that he should face the consequences of his action.
“Our community is a law-abiding one. We could have meted out justice to him the night we caught him, but we decided to hand him over to the police immediately. We believe in the police and the court of law. Justice must take its full course. Such a thing has never happened in our place before”, he said.
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