It was another sad Sunday for the Catholic community when news filtered that a Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Cyriacus Onunkwo was kidnapped and killed by his abductors. The first inkling of the chilling and despicable development came to this writer as he was going through the major news of the day after returning from mass service penultimate Sunday.
It is usual for me to start the day browsing through the major national dailies online. But on Sundays, this habit is delayed until after early morning church service. As I went through, I stumbled on a story in one of the national dailies’ platform ‘Catholic priest killed by kidnappers in Imo”
For reasons that will soon become obvious, I was immediately attracted to the story. As I read through, I became more agitated when the name was given as Fr. Cyriacus Onunkwo from the Orlu Diocese of the Catholic Church. Immediately, my mind went to one of our brothers; a Reverend Father from the Onunkwo family. Could it be him or a mere coincidence in name since his missionary work is not anywhere around Imo state?
Moreover, I was with his elder brother – Lagos based medical practitioner, Dr. Onunkwo in the village a few days back to bury one of our illustrious sons and first professor from the community, Prof Theo. Azuka Ume. As I ruminated over this dilemma, the thought came to me to place a call to him to confirm. But on second thought, I felt it was not in consonance with our culture to do so especially should the outcome turn the opposite.
As I was still in this confusion, a call immediately came from one of my cousins: “Have you heard what happened to Fr. Onunkwo? I immediately screamed as I did not need any further proof that our brother was actually the one murdered by some demented and callous men. Tears rolled out of my eyes that such a terrible thing could happen to a man of God in a clime that highly reveres priests. How come? He has not been in the country! He has neither a parish in Imo nor is he posted around Orlu. So how come such innocent soul and promising young priest was cruelly wasted in the most dastardly manner? It was difficult to come to terms with that foreboding reality.
After a little while, I placed a call to Dr. Onunkwo: “what am I hearing, I enquired? Whatever you have heard is true, he said, apparently referring to the deaths of the priest and his father. Then, I had not even heard of his father’s death a few days after we left the burial of Prof. Ume. He then began to tell me how Fr. Onunkwo returned home from Lagos where he was posted after completing his course in Rome. He came home to see his sick father who was admitted at St Charles Boromeo Specialist Hospital, Onitsha and to pray for him. But his father unfortunately passed on the following day making it difficult for him to return to his station.
He had to wait for his bothers to return for them to see the Catholic Bishop of Orlu for funeral arrangements and also to inform his colleagues and other family members. It was in the course of this that he ran into the criminals who abducted him at gun-point in Orlu. That was the much he could recall. As he narrated these to me, I could feel how devastated he was. I took some time to console him at the double tragedy of losing his dear father and having his younger brother murdered in such a callous and inhuman manner.
It was a very sad and emotion-laden moment for both of us and I had to end the discussions at that point. Thereafter, I began to imagine what could have come over his abductors to the extent of murdering an innocent priest in such a dastardly and cruel manner. Curiously, no contact was made by the kidnappers to demand for money as they are wont to. They killed him the same day they abducted him and there was neither gunshot wound nor any serious injury on his body recovered by the police. These fuelled further suspicion they might have suffocated him in the process of extracting information.
As should be expected, the killing attracted wide condemnation from cross the divide. Imo State government described the murder as “senseless and wickedness”. The state police commissioner, Chris Ezike said it is “inhuman and aberration to human existence” and reassured that they will apprehend the murderers.
And in keeping with this promise, the police promptly arrested six people in connection with the cruel murder of the priest. The leader of the gang, a dismissed police corporal, Jude Madu was apprehended with the telephone handset of their victim and wrist watch somewhere in Owerri. He was said to have confessed to the crime.
Apparently elated by the prompt arrest of the hoodlums, Ezike said the feat was made possible due to their deployment of forensic technology, commitment, and passion for success. The police in Imo stand commended for living up to their words in the quick arrest of the bestial criminals. The feat will go a long way to reassure citizens of the capacity of security agencies to combat the rising crime wave in the state. But information on the suspects, except their names and places of origin was largely sketchy. There was no clue as to their modus operandi, what they intended to do with their victim and why they killed him except the tentative disclosure by one of them that the priest died because they covered his nose.
We are also anxious to hear where they usually kept their victims and their escapades in this devious enterprise. This is more so given the claim by one of the suspects that they did not intend to kill him and they did not know that he was a priest. Another version from the criminals had it that they covered his mouth with tape and hauled him into the booth of their car when he was shouting that he was a priest. There is the need for them to be more seriously interrogated.
This is more so as none of the suspects is from any of the 12 local government areas that make up the Orlu zone where the kidnapping and killing took place. So at what point did they cover his nose – inside the car or at someone’s residence? When and at what point did they discover that the priest had died and had to dump him on a bushy roadside? All these posers tend to indicate that the suspected criminals must have an operational base around the area they kidnapped and brutally killed the Reverend Father.
The police still have to get at the criminals’ cells and detention camps. Ezike must beam his searchlight along the Orlu axis. There is much kidnapping and sundry criminality along the axis where the priest was kidnapped and killed. Many of these are not reported. But those who killed Fr. Cyriacus must be diligently prosecuted and made to pay for their crime.
Ordained in 2003, Fr. Cyriacus who hails from Osina in the Ideato Local Government Area of Imo State is a Fidei Donum priest from the Catholic Diocese of Orlu. He served variously as associate parish priest, St Joseph’s Parish, Mgbidi and St John’s Parish Umualoma all in Imo State. While at Umualoma, he proceeded for his Masters degree at Imo State University and thereafter returned to the same parish at the end of the programme.
Fr. Cyriacus also served at St Patrick’s Parish Amagu and St Mary’s Parish Awomama before he was sent to Rome for further studies. On return to Nigeria, he was posted as associate parish priest at St Charles Parish Olodi Apapa in the Lagos Arch Diocese. It was from Lagos that he travelled to see his sick father before the worst happened.
His colleagues described him as a very hardworking, principled and intelligent priest who in the course of his work impacted positively on the lives of many especially the poor. As an ardent lover of knowledge and education, he paid school fees for many indigent students that came across him. It is sad his life has been brought to an abrupt end in the most chilling and unfortunate circumstance by evil men.
It is particularly a very trying moment for the people of Osina community. This is the third time the community is losing its young and promising sons to heartless and demented kidnappers. May the almighty God he served grant his soul and those of the two other Osina sons who died in similar circumstances eternal rest in his bosom! Amen.
