WHO killed 25 young men of between 25 and 40 years and dumped their bodies in Ezu River in Amansea, Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State on January 19? Could it be the Anti-Special Robbery Squad, SARS, at Awkuzu, near Awka, the Anambra State capital, or who?
These questions remain unanswered since January 19, 2013, when the people of Amansea woke up to find dead bodies in the river, which is their only source of water. Until now, nobody seems to know how the bodies got into the river. Ezu River has its source at Agbogwugwu in Awgu Local Government Area of neighbouring Enugu State.
It flows into Anambra River, which empties into the River Niger. Ezu traverses most of Awka North Local Government Area in Anambra North Senatorial District. The spot in the river where the bodies were found is on the Old Enugu-Onitsha Road, with a bridge of about 35 metres markedly placed above it. Some Amansea indigenes who were fetching water from the river early in the morning of the fateful day discovered the dead bodies.
They said they saw the bodies floating slowly, with some wedged on the banks of the river. The actual number of the dead bodies has not been ascertained, with conflicting figures ranging from 23 to 25. Vanguard gathered from the residents that 18 bodies were discovered on January 19; four others on January 20, while three more were noticed two days later, bringing the total to 25.
Emergency Meeting
On seeing the bodies, the indigenes alerted the traditional ruler, Igwe Kenneth Okonkwo, who mobilised his cabinet for an emergency meeting, after which the state government and the state police command were contacted. Since then, the river has become a tourist centre as people now visit the area for firsthand information. What made the discovery more mysterious was when various communities on the banks of the river in Anambra and Enugu States said that nobody was missing from their areas. Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, who was not in the State, directed the State Executive Council to find out what happened. Anambra State contacted Enugu State even as Mr. Daura, the Enugu State Commissioner of Police, joined his Anambra State counterpart, Mr. Bala Nasarawa, in the search for answers.
The men Igwe Okonkwo of Amansea sent to the scene on January 19 said they saw blood stains on the bailey bridge, from where the dead bodies were believed to have been thrown into the river. They said they did not see any sign of scuffle in the area. However, the Anambra State Police Commissioner said the police saw no blood stains when they visited the scene.
Were the victims killed elsewhere then dumped in the river? Without communal clashes among the communities in Anambra or Enugu States, or major road accidents, suspicions rose that the bodies were dumped from the bridge.
A Fulani woman residing in the area said she saw a vehicle parked on the bridge in the wee hours of January 19, with some people dropping objects into the river from there. Some natives said two vehicles which resembled Toyota Liteace (L300) actually dropped off the objects into the Ezu River in the early hours of January 19.
At Ezu River, Vanguard observed that a police post is located less than 250 metres from the bridge on the river. It was not new and was close enough to observe the reported movements on January 19. Though 25 decomposing bodies evacuated from the river were earlier given a mass burial close to the river, the uncertainty surrounding the deaths necessitated their exhumation for autopsy.
Initially, three of the dead bodies were exhumed, then all the rest were exhumed for the exercise by police pathologists from Force Headquarters, Abuja, and Anambra State. The results of the autopsy are yet to be released, but the Anambra State government explained that the “startling discoveries” from the autopsy report on the first three bodies forced it to order that the rest of the bodies be exhumed for the same purpose.
Anambra State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Lawrence Ikeako, said it would be out of place to use the result from the three bodies originally taken away for autopsy to represent the cause of the death of all the corpses found floating on Ezu River.
Prof. Anthony Agbata of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, led the team of pathologists, and a commissioner from the Force Headquarters led the police side.
No Gun Injuries or Machete Cuts on the Bodies, Says Police
The police said all the victims were males; some wore only singlets, while others wore only boxer pants. Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Bala Nasarawa, also confirmed that there were no gun injuries or machete cuts on their bodies. Nasarawa would not say if the police had done biometric tests on the victims.
Vanguard had also wanted to know from the police whether those carrying out the exercise used INEC’s data capture to know where the victims lived and who they were before their death, but the state Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Emeka Chukwuemeka, said the command did not understand those technicalities as it had left them in the hands of medical experts. Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ikeako, also said the pathologists had not briefed him.
He also urged those seeking information on the matter to wait for the findings of the autopsy. Ikeako said the state government had spent N1.5 million on the morticians and those who evacuated the bodies, with more bills for the autopsy and embalming.
Senate Probes
The Senate asked two of its committees to investigate the issue following a motion moved by Senator Andy Uba representing Anambra South. Senate committees comprising Paulinus Nwagu, Chairman, Committee on Police Affairs; Mohammed Magoro, Chairman of the Committee on National Security and Intelligence; Solomon Ewuga, Mohammed Sami Sani, Dr. Chris Ngige, and Alhaji Shaaba Lafiagi visited the traditional ruler of Amansea, Igwe Okonkwo, the initial burial site on the bank of Ezu River, before they commenced a public inquiry at the Government House, Awka.
The committees observed that nobody from Ugwuoba in Enugu, which shares boundaries with Amansea, was available to speak on the mystery deaths. Vanguard visited Ugwuoba before the arrival of the senate committees and was informed that none of its members was missing.
However, the Anambra State Police Commissioner, Mr. Nasarawa, curiously told the Senate committees investigating the mysterious discoveries that the decomposing bodies were buried immediately following a court order. Nasarawa did not say who instituted the suit, those sued, and how that happened within hours of the bodies being found.
Testifying later during the Senate committees’ public hearing at the Government House, Awka, Nasarawa said the police were not involved in the burial. According to him, it was the responsibility of the Awka North Local Government to bury them, with the supervision of the police.
He said: “When the governor cut short his visit outside the country and returned because of the incident, he asked me about the evacuation and the arrangement for the burial, and I told him it was not the duty of the police and that it is the responsibility of the local government.
“He then asked us to put heads together to decide on what to do to protect the health of the villagers whose environment had been polluted.” He further explained that the police were still trying to unravel the mystery surrounding the discovery of the bodies, pointing out that a Deputy Commissioner of Police from the Force Headquarters was leading detectives in the investigation, which is yet to be completed.
He further said that there was a serious problem in carrying out the assignment because of what he described as the refusal of people to come up with useful information despite the pledge of N5 million by Governor Peter Obi to anybody that would offer useful information on the incident.
The commissioner also told members of the committee that there has not been any arrest on the matter, but promised that “very soon, the police will achieve the desired result.”
MASSOB Petitions
As the controversy continued, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, claimed that some of the dead bodies were its members earlier arrested by the police in Onitsha and detained at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, headquarters, Awkuzu.
Relations of detained members
MASSOB director of information, Comrade Uchenna Madu, in a petition to President Goodluck Jonathan, gave the names of the MASSOB members as Basil Ogbu, Michael Ogwa, Sunday Omogo, Philip Nwamkpa, Eze Ndubuisi, Ebuka Eze, Obinna Ofor, Joseph Udoh, and Uchechukwu Ejiofor.
He said: “They were arrested at MASSOB security office at Onitsha, Anambra State, on November 9, 2012, by a combined team of Nigeria security agents and were later handed over to SARS headquarters, Awkuzu, Anambra State. Some of our disguised members and relations of the detained members were denied access to them, including medical assistance.
Efforts by our legal counsel to secure their bail from the police were futile. Our demands for their arraignment before a competent court of law were frustrated by security officers. They claimed that the court was not sitting because of Christmas. We got information from an insider that MASSOB members detained were secretly killed alongside other robbery suspects.
