Parents and children alike have lessons to learn here
Sometimes, I feel tempted to agree with former Chief of General Staff, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, who once said (I think at a press briefing) that the Babangida government that he was second-in-command in would ‘arrest and jail’ some suspects. Aikhomu characteristically forgot that after the police have made arrest, the judiciary is supposed to take over, and that it is only the judiciary that has the power to jail or convict. Even after one of his aides had allegedly reminded him of this serious error of omission, Aikhomu amended his statement to read that yes, they would ‘arrest, prosecute and jail’ the felons! The point, nonsensical as it seemed, was that the military had no patience for the rule of law. The point I am also making is that there are times when matters have resolved themselves, and we need not belabour issues by looking for what is not missing all in the name of rule of law.
Two recent incidents in the country seem to have vindicated this position. The first was the death, on August 17, of Clifford Orji, and the second, the brutal murder of pretty Cynthia Osokogu, the daughter of Major-General Frank Osokogu (rtd), by two satanic cousins, on July 22. Orji came into limelight when people began to suspect his activities under the bridge at the Toyota Bust Stop area of the Oshodi- Apapa Expressway in Lagos in the late 1990s. He was arrested and subsequently arraigned on February 19, 1999, at the Ebute-Metta Magistrate’s Court in Lagos.
Perhaps the most curious thing in his case was that for the 13 years that he was at the Kirikiri Prison, he was never tried in court for the allegations of cannibalism and being in possession of human parts over which he was arrested, ostensibly because he was mad. And no psychiatric hospital in the country could treat him! The next thing we were told was that he has died. So, we may never know whether it was some big men that actually planted him under the bridge to source for human parts for them, or not.
We were yet to digest this when Cynthia’s death hit the news waves. The 24 year-old was the last child and only daughter of Major-Gen. Osokogu (rtd). She was killed in an hotel in FESTAC Town in Lagos. Two men who had reportedly admitted that they murdered her were paraded on August 22 by the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja. The suspects are Echezona Nwabufor, 33, and Ezekiel Nnechuwu Olisa Eloka, 23. Eloka said they killed Cynthia because they thought she had a lot of money in her possession.
From what they reportedly said, and as captured by journalists during the police parade of the duo, it would seem Cynthia’s blood was crying for vengeance. Otherwise, the two suspects would not have been singing like canaries the way they did, after they were caught. When the story broke, some people felt there might have been more to it than was initially reported. Unless those paraded are later found not to be the ones that lured pretty Cynthia to Lagos, or unless they repudiate the story they told the press when they were being paraded, it was clear there was nothing between the suspects and the late Cynthia. The suspects themselves admitted that they met on Blackberry group chat and began communicating from there.
No doubt, one expected a lady doing post-graduate programme to have been more circumspect about the kind of people to trust, and not to jump at offers, particularly from strangers (that was a creed many of us were taught when we were growing up; I do not know whether such things are still being taught today), that might have been a weakness, and Cynthia’s eventual undoing. From what is in the public domain however, one gets the impression that she possibly might not have been in dire need of the free air ticket and hotel accommodation that her suspected murderers used to lure her. Parents have a job to do here. People addicted to the social networks also have to watch it. At any rate, whatever Cynthia might have been, sinner or saint, she did not deserve to die the way she did in the hands of the brutes in human skin that killed her.
The suspects themselves probably realised this, and the consequence; hence, the song they have been singing that they never meant to kill her; that all they wanted to do was dispossess her of money and other valuables. As a businesswoman, they had thought she would come to Lagos with a lot of money to buy the cheap goods they promised they were going to offer her. But one should wonder what that means, considering that they admitted drugging her with 10 tablets of Rohypnol, which they injected into three packs of Ribena juice that they served her in her hotel room. They did not meant to kill her, yet, they kept her under ruffling sheets for 12 long hours, a thing they denied, yet, traces of semen were found on her private part! I do not know whether even professional prostitutes could have survived such assault.
Again, the suspects denied having sex with her; they denounced the condoms found in the hotel room and stuff like that. Yet, they claimed she was about their fifth victim and that they had only always robbed and raped the other victims, that none of them ever died in their ‘protective custody’. The kind of stupid things they have been saying, and so incoherently too, once again shows that many criminals hitherto thought to be men become lily-livered when finally apprehended. How do people who claimed they had only been raping their other victims now say they never did in Cynthia’s case? And they want us to believe that? What pleasure would the lady have derived from using a vibrator (sex toy) on herself when she had two able-bodied suspected serial rapists in the same room with her? They want us to believe that, too? Cynthia’s first striking feature was her captivating beauty. Not to have ‘known her’ as the suspects want us to believe would probably have meant that their other victims were paragons of beauty too, whose shoe laces Cynthia would not have been qualified to untie. They did not mean to kill her, yet, they tied her mouth and hands; they also chained her legs! What bunkum? These beastly cousins should go tell all these to the marines! They did not mean to kill her, yet they referred to her as ’bastard’ after they were through with her.
If we take into cognisance the items allegedly recovered from the suspects: seven driving licences (three belonging to Ezekiel, four belonging to Okumo with different names); the deceased’s belongings, including her shoes (found in Okumo’s house); 17 mobile phones, two Diamond Bank rubber stamps, two syringes, a pack of Ribena, 22 SIM cards, a chain, 12 debit and credit cards, we will know that they are big time suspects.
In conclusion, it was a lawyer friend of mine who led me into the temptation of wanting to see some sense in what Admiral Aikhomu said: that we don’t have to take the luxury of the rule of law in cases that seem to have decided themselves; we should just ‘arrest and jail’ the suspects, when she said that if the suspects in Cynthia’s matter get a good lawyer, they might escape being charged with murder, or even receive a mere slap on the wrist for whatever the court eventually finds them guilty of. However, we should wait to get to that bridge before crossing it.
