By Jennifer John, Uzoma Ogoke and Ikenna Orioha
About 25 years ago, a little boy, Anthony Ikechukwu Okonkwo, aged 10, was gruesomely murdered for ritual purposes at the famous Otokoto hotel around Amakohia in Owerri, Imo State. All controversies surrounding the ritual murder and the rigorous judging processes that led to the conviction of key actors in the ritual murder are all history now and very much in the public domain.
Meanwhile, News Echo in its developmental journalism mission deemed it feat to take a retrospective look at the incident, especially as it concerns the mother and other family members of the victim. This informed the decision of the newspaper to trace the the whereabouts of the mother of Ikechukwu Okonkwo. Applying its network of contact, your ever refreshing newspaper got a lead-way that Mrs Okonkwo was currently residing at Ihube Okigwe. Events moved fast and poverty-stricken Mrs Okonkwo with misty eyes, shaken feet and a heart full of sorrow agreed to talk to the team of News Echo about her fallen world.
*What you may need to know about the mother and family of late Ikechukwu Okonkwo*
The name of the mother is Mrs Patricia Abel Okonkwo. Her maiden home is Ozara in Ihube, Okigwe LGA. She was married to Ndi-Aniche, Aro-Ndizuogu, Ideato North LGA both of Imo State. Her husband, Mr Abel Okonkwo died after she had given birth to their last child Chiadikaobi Okonkwo. Contrary to reports and insinuations widely believed, Ikechukwu Okonkwo was never the only child, but the first of seven children of Late Mr Abel Okonkwo and his wife. That means four boys and three girls. Mrs Okonkwo ran away from her husband’s family house when the persecution from the husband’s elder brother became so intense and coupled with the fact that she was not finding it easy to Carter for herself and the seven children, even as they had no house of their own. By the time she ran back from the husband’s house to her father’s house, her elder brother, late Mr Jonathan Okwuobasi Okonkwo, a fashion designer who took it upon himself to help her by taking Ikechukwu with him to Owerri where he resided at No.4, Amakohia, so he (Ikechukwu Okonkwo) could be sent to school. It was from that point little Okonkwo got into trouble.
*Hawking, Otokoto and Okonkwo’s end
From the chat with Mrs Patricia Okonkwo, it was revealed that the sister-in-law, cooked groundnut and sent Okonkwo to go and hawk on the streets of Amakohia, Owerri. It was while hawking groundnut on the streets of Amakohia that he was lured into the Otokoto Hotel in the guise of buying groundnut, where he was killed, his head chopped off and his body buried in a shallow grave in the compound of Otokoto Hotel. This incident brought to fore what had been happening in the state unravelled before then. It is on record that while the cartel involved in ritual murder, obtaining by tricks, (popularly known as 419) showed off their affluence, became lord and law unto themselves and the society at large. As it was people, especially children were disappearing in the manner of Ikechukwu’s case. The law of karma finally caught up with them and other atrocities of that era were brought to the fore and all those involved or suspected to be involved in the ritual money making syndicate were fiercely descended upon by the masses, whose anger was already built-up. Everything associated with them was vandalised and looted as most of their houses were ransacked in search of incriminating evidence to prove their involvement in the ritual money practice. They all ran away from the state as the people’s anger raged for days, uncontrollably.
Mrs Okoronkwo Pitiable Condition.
The situation has remained the same for almost 25 years. she is still at the father’s house. Though the husband’s elder brother who persecuted her and her children is now late and his (the elder brother’s) son has been showing them kindness, coming to visit them whenever he comes home for Christmas celebration, the inhibiting factor preventing them from going back to her husband’s house (his children’s ancestral home) remains the lack of house to shelter them.
She has also been facing persecution in his father’s house as one of her father’s brothers and his family have connived with his late brother’s wife, (the very woman that sent Ikechukwu to hawk groundnut, where he met his gruesome and untimely death) to mete out to her, the worst persecution of her life. They have been, ordering her and her children to leave the father’s house and go back to the husband’s house, threatening that if they fail to leave in life, they will leave in death.
Mrs Okonkwo narrated that just this past December, they connived to fight and brutalize her, inflicting serious bodily injuries on her.
She lamented that the immediate younger brother of Ikechukwu is currently insane. The madness according to Mrs Okonkwo is generally suspected in the family circle to have been projected diabolically by the same family that has been persecuting the woman and her children. According to her, “He has been threatening that time shall come when my son will no longer recognize me. Within that time we started seeing fetish substances around the compound before my son gradually started running mad. We have tried our best in looking for a solution, to the problem, all to no avail”.
The most pathetic aspect of the whole incident is that his brother’s wife who is still based in Owerri with his children went and chased the very son that was running madly out of the room he stays, making him run into the bush.
*Abandoned: Buffeted by the wind, scorched by the sun, drenched by rain and forgotten by successive governments
In a sane society, this family would have adequately taken care of by both the government and Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs. But this is not the case here. The poor woman and her children, without their father, are left and abandoned to their fate. The family has no shelter. NO meaningful source of income because no person, group or government has ever come to their aid. How could such a case which attracted international attention be left to just die like that and the victim left unprotected and uncared for? How could this woman be left to be going through all that she and her children have been going through in the hands of wicked relatives, including the very woman that sends her son to his untimely grave? In such a case which became a state and national issue, one would have expected that the victim’s family would have been given the best condition of leaving, if not for the fact that their son was killed in that manner, but for the fact that the case attracted international attention to Imo State for the very bad reason. It should have been in our consciousness that the case will remain a reference point, as scholars and researchers would from time to time want to unearth some facts about the incident and the family of the victim.
Only #200.000 received
According to Mrs Okonkwo, while the case was ongoing, she was being invited and each time she was going to Owerri, she would do a menial job to get money for transportation to Owerri.
“During that time, they enquired what should be done for me as compensation for the death of my son, I requested for the house, since we had non and assistance in training my younger children. My elder brother was the person running around and seeing the case. He later informed me that two hundred thousand nairas (N200,000) were paid as compensation. That was all the help that came our way as a result of the incident”.
Mrs Okonkwo’s situation pathetic
With all the trouble she has been through, She currently relies on menial jobs for her daily bread. Apart from her second son who is currently running mad, her 3rd son is in the village, also doing menial jobs, like mining of local stones for a living, while the last son who is equally the last born, Mr Chiadikaobi Okonkwo is currently learning ladies shoemaking at Powerline in Aba, Abia state, from where he came back to join his mother in receiving News Echo crew.
The ladies are said to have all gotten married, but probably not too well to do men who could assist the family financially. She regretted that if Ikechukwu is alive, with the type of enterprise spirit he exhibited at the early stage of his life, the family’s case wouldn’t have remained the same.
Hearing from the last born, Chiadikaobi Okonkwo’s (a shoemaker who specialize in ladies shoes), said he was still in diapers when Ikechukwu was gruesomely killed, explained that they had got trips of sand on the portion of land allotted to them to build a house at Arondizuogu, Ideato North Local Government Area, Imo state, their native home, by their folks. He begged for assistance to commence the construction of the building to settle down finally.
“I will be glad to go back to my father’s house. Although we have made a positive move to build a house on a portion of land given to us at our native home, Arondizuogu, we need money to start building the house so that we can have a place to lay our heads. I just finished learning shoemaking work at Aba. The death of my elder brother left a devastating blow on us and we are yet to recover from the rude shock”, Chiadikaobi said emotionally.
While her brother, Ike Anthony Nnodumele and his wife, Felicia Anthony Ike, mentioned that Ikechukwu’s mother’s ordeal was compounded by the mental derangement of her second son, who they said became ill 6 years ago after he was threatened with madness by one of his mother’s kinsmen over a portion of land.
“It is another problem for her. Originally, the second son was working as a security in a private firm before he got mentally ill. We have explored available means to revive him, but to no avail, having run short of money. We hope to revive him mentally if there is money. It is unfortunate that our late elder brother, Jonathan Okwuobasi Okoronkwo, who lived with Ikechukwu Okonkwo in Owerri, died in 2019”.
Adding his voice, another family member, Chinwendu Okoronkwo, a miner, said that the woman needs help from the government and well-to-do- individuals to enable her to assuage her misery and sorrow. He frowned that some persons had laboured to evacuate her from her father’s house, but shamefully failed.
