Police were paid to kill my husband, Anambra widow alleges

The wife of a murdered 48-year-old motorcyclist in Anambra State has accused the police of being paid to kill her husband in detention.

The widow of the motorcyclist, Mrs. Ebere Okonkwo, said her husband, Dubem Okonkwo, was murdered in Awkuzu police cell in Oyi LGA by the police without him committing any offence .

She said, “I am suspecting that someone paid the police to kill my husband.”

The late Okonkwo was a member of the Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria (TOAN) Awka branch, who was arrested by the police in March, 2022.

According to Mrs Okonkwo, her husband went missing from the Awkuzu police cell after being paraded by the Commissioner of Police, Echeng Echeng, on April 15, 2022, at the police headquarters in Awka.

According to the mother of one, the police picked her husband at Unizik Junction Park, but that the CP refused to tell the family or his association his offence till he was murdered by the police.

She said, “Why did the police kill my husband in cold blood? I am suspecting that someone paid them to kill him. Let us assume that he committed any crime, was it right to kill him in the cell without being taken to court?

“The police will now look for a crime to hang on his neck. But even if he committed any crime, was it right to kill him without taking him to court?”

She, therefore, said, “I need justice. And every Nigerian must stand with me in this fight for justice. I demand an explanation for the death of my husband.

“That is why I am crying to President Muhammadu Buhari, the Inspector General of Police, Women Affairs Minister, as well as well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on CP Echeng to bring the policemen and those who paid them to murder him to book.”

She also called on the president and the IGP to prevail on the Anambra CP to allow her take her husband’s body and give him a befitting burial.

The spokesman police in the state, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, told Daily Trust that the late Okonkwo’s case was with the CP.

Effort to reach the CP to react on the situation proved abortive as all calls and messages sent to his mobile phone were not replied.