Yesterday, Nigeria, the Southeast and especially Anambra State woke up to the sad news of the gruesome beheading of Hon. Okechukwu Okeye, Member representing Aguata I in Anambra State House of Assembly. The sad news of Hon. Okoye’s death bittered me to my bone marrows because as one of the journalists covering the state assembly’s proceedings, I knew him and have had course to interact with him on very personal levels. I was also most saddened because of the way and manner my good friend was butchered. Eyewitnesses told us his head was severed from his body and dumped at different locations.
Hon. Okoye was a fine man who gave his people a sound and deserving representation. He was a family man who loved his family and work assiduously to better the condition of his constituency and leave the world better than he found it. What will his young wife who put to bed not too long ago do? What about his parents, his constituents and the indigent students who are in school today courtesy to his benevolence? Oh, I have a sorrow in my heart? The killing of Hon. Okoye is one of man’s gravest inhumanity to man.
But I am not here to cry over my beloved friend or to pay tribute to his achievements. A time for that is coming and I have no doubt that he has friends and family who will pay him nice tributes and sing very fine odes for him. For the meantime, let’s talk about those behind this most barbaric form of killing. I want to address this question: who killed Hon. Okoye?
Who Killed Hon. Okoye?
From the news making rounds, there are three key suspects in the murder of Hon. Okoye: the armed wing of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Eastern Security Network (ESN), Agents of the Nigerian Government (DSS) and Hon. Okoye’s political rivals. I will examine the degree of the possibilities that any of these three groups killed the Hon. Member and allow the reader to make his own deductions.
Did ESN Kill Hon. Okoye
Anyone who has even the minutest experience in detective work or is involved in investigative journalism would know that whenever there is a case of murder, the first thing an investigator should do to track those behind the killing is to look for motives. By motive, I mean what the killer stands to gain from the death of the person who is killed. This is because no normal human being just goes out there to murder somebody for the fun of murdering the person. People kill for reasons and so one of the ways of finding killers is to look for motives behind killings. The important question here is what does IPOB/ESN stands to gain from killing Hon. Okoye?
There are a number of hypotheses here. IPOB has two major aims in the Southeast currently: the release of Nnamdi Kanu and the implementation of a UN supervised referendum. Would the killing of Hon. Okoye in any way help IPOB with these goals? The only possibility I can think of is this: one could say that IPOB killed Hon. Okoye to send a strong message to Southeast leaders to take the call for the release of Kanu and their demand referendum serious.
However, there are a number of loopholes in this conclusion. The first difficulty is if IPOB wants to send a message to Southeast politicians, why kill Okoye who was just an ordinary house member in a state house of assembly: why not kill a governor, a senator or a top ranking Igbo politician? Additionally, IPOB is well aware that the Nigerian Government is doing all it can to convince the international community, especially the British and the US Governments that IPOB is a terrorist organization. So, for IPBO to embark on the madness of killing and beheading in Southeast can be likened to the case of man who knowing that his assailants want to burn him alive but still went ahead to pour fuel on him. Therefore, the case that IPOB killed Hon. Okoye doesn’t stand up to cross-examination. IPOB has more to loss in the death of Hon. Okoye than it stands to gain. The strongest weapon IPOB has today is its international support. To have itself proscribed internationally because of killing an almost insignificant lawmaker is a gamble IPOB cannot afford to play. If IPOB did not kill Hon. Okoye, who does?
Nigerian DSS
Another actor in the game of insecurity in the Southeast is the DSS. This group has on many occasions been accused of abduction and extra-judicial killing of Igbo youths. IPOB has on more than one occasion indicted the DSS of being behind the current upsurge in insecurity in the Southeast. Now, I am not here to out rightly conclude that the DSS murdered Hon. Okoye. I don’t have evidence to prove that. However, we are looking at motives and it does appear that the Nigerian Government has everything to gain from the killing of Hon. Okoye?
The Nigerian Government will do anything and I mean anything to see that IPOB is proscribed internationally. Just recently, the Minister of Information and Culture, AL haji Lai Mohammed petitioned Facebook, asking the media giant to ban members of IPOB from using the platform to promote their secessionist agenda. The fact is that the Nigerian Government will do anything to ensure that IPOB is destroyed. With the current security situation in the Southeast, where every type of crime, including armed robbery, kidnaping, etc., is blamed on IPOB, there is a very strong possibility that the Nigerian Government would sponsor this kind of killing to use it to pursue their quest to have IPOB proscribed disbanded. I stand to be corrected on this.
Hon. Okoye’s Political Opponents
I read somewhere this morning that Hon. Okoye was a frontrunner for Aguata I Constituency in the upcoming APGA Primary election. Now, there is strong possibility that other contestants in the race who saw him as a stumbling block to their goals would want him out of the way. There is also the chance that Hon. Okoye had other political rivals who necessarily were not his constituency opponents: these maybe party members or those in the state assembly who saw his presence as a threat. Hypothetically, these political opponents maybe the ones responsible for the gruesome murder we have at hand.
Whatever be the case, out of the three major suspects (IPOB, the DSS & opponents politicians) in this senseless murder of Hon. Okoye, there are more reasons to believe that the Hon. Member was killed either by the DSS or by his political opponents or by both. IPOB has nothing to gain from his death; rather IPOB has everything to loss. Usually, investigators in this type of murder case should beam their searchlight on the DSS and Hon. Okoye’s political opponents. Unfortunately, this may never happen because the people investigating the murder may actually be the very people who committed the murder.
