- Family in fruitless search for body, probes disappearance of money, phones, other belongings
The family of Peter Ibezim, a 43-year-old Nigerian businessman based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, is enmeshed in confusion over the fate of their son whose demise was announced via a Facebook post. GBENGA ADERANTI writes about the efforts being made by the family members to ascertain the circumstances surrounding his purported death without evidence of his remains.
Is Abidjan-based Nigerian businessman, Ibezim Peters, dead? What could have killed him? Was the Nigerian embassy in the West African French-speaking contacted? Who took away the late Peters’ belongings? Where are his phones? If Peters is truly dead, why is there no photograph of his body? These, among others, are the questions the family members of Peter in Nigeria are asking the authorities in Abidjan.
According to Peters’ sister, Gift, the textiles dealer had lived in Abidjan for about 30 years before his death was announced on the Facebook. Until his purported death, the die-hard supporter of Super Eagles was dealing in clothing materials.
Two weeks before the family was told of Peters’ death, he had participated in an online family meeting without any sign of ill health. “He was bubbly and lively throughout the meeting,” Gift said in a telephone chat with our correspondent.
She added that a few weeks before the Facebook post on Peters’ death, he had sent his share of contributions to the family. “The family members normally contribute money into the family’s purse and he had just sent his own contribution about three days before his purported ‘demise,” Gift said.
The news of Peters’ death was made public by an Ivorian, Raketa Sawagodo, who claimed to be a friend to ‘the late’ Peters.
“She had written RIP (rest in peace) on my brother’s picture on Facebook and this got us curious,” Gift said.
“Initially, we thought it was a hoax or something. It was the comments that followed the post that made us to contact the person who posted the picture and she told us that my brother’s leg got swollen and he was taken to the hospital.
“In fact, we were told that he went to the hospital himself that Monday. He was treated and given some drugs, but he died the next day.”
Curiously, the post has since been deleted from the Facebook wall of Raketa.
Gift said in their effort to find out what actually happened to Peters, the eldest member of their family contacted Raketa via a Facebook message, but she said she does not speak English but uses Google translation.
“She told us that my brother complained of a swollen leg. We are curious because the issue of swollen leg is coming up. He never complained about any ailment during the online meeting with the family members a few weeks ago,” Gift argued.
Providing further insight into how Peters died, Raketa told the family that when she saw his lifeless body, she informed the police and they took the body to the mortuary. But before she returned from the mortuary, his documents, phones, money and other personal belongings had disappeared from his room.
But Peters’ family members are not convinced by Raketa’s explanation as they wondered how somebody would walk in and pack Peters’ documents and personal belongings just moments after he passed on. “Who are the people responsible for this and what are they trying to hide?” Gift queried.
To worsen matters, Raketa would later tell the family members in Nigeria that they would have to pay N20,000 daily to keep Peters’ remains in the mortuary in Ivory Coast, warning that his body would be disposed off if the family failed to pay. However, the said amount was later reduced to N10,000.
In a bid to make communication easier, Raketa introduced the family to a Cote d’Ivoire based Nigerian named Bisi, who insisted that one of the family members must come to Ivory Coast before she could do anything. She also said she was willing to transport any of the family members coming to Ivory Coast free of charge.
While appreciating Bisi’s gesture, the family called the driver recommended by Bisi but were shocked by the response they got. The driver insisted that the return trip to Ivory Coast would cost N200,000; a demand that got the family even more suspicious.
Besides, Bisi said the representative of the Ibezim from Nigeria would stay in her house, saying that she was married and had told her husband that some people would be coming from Nigeria to stay with them; a gesture the Ibezims found too good to be true.
Narrating his encounter with Raketa, Paul Ibezim, a brother to Peter, said: “The woman (Raketa) said she knew my brother very well; that they were friends.
“The day the incident happened, according to her, it was the neighbours that knew the deceased to be her friend that called, and that was when she rushed to Peters’ house where he found his corpse.
“Later, they called the Nigerian embassy in Ivory Coast and, according to Raketa, they told her to call an ambulance to take the deceased to the morgue, which she did.
“She told me that she was also told to go and do a police report.
“She said she saw when they took my brother out of the ambulance and she noticed that one of the legs was swollen.
“According to her, Peters had earlier complained that he was feeling pains in one of his legs an the leg was itching at the same time.
“He went to the hospital where he was given injections and drugs, but when he got home, he slumped and died.
“The question again is who did Peters narrate the story of his illnesses to? How did they know he slumped and died? Who was with him when he slumped?”
Paul also said he did not contact the Nigerian embassy in Ivory Coast because he had no contact with the embassy. Fortunately, Bisi came to the rescue again by providing him with the number of one Mr. Okpara who works at the Nigerian embassy in Ivory Coast, but his efforts to contact him had not been successful.
Bisi, however, assured that if Paul could come to Ivory Coast, she would take the family to the embassy.
“She said the late Peters never belonged to any group or society in Ivory Coast so nobody wanted to take any responsibility for his burial.
“According to Bisi, the Igbo community denied knowing him when they took his photograph to them. The other Nigerian communities also said they did not know him as he was not part of their meetings.
“They said they needed to see somebody from the family before they could bury him. But if nobody showed up, they would give his remains to the Nigerian embassy to do whatever they want with his remains.”
Paul insisted that many questions were begging for answers as he was not sure if his brother died. He said the Ibezim family would want to be sure that all that all they had been hearing about the death of Peters was not a hoax.
According to Paul, all the efforts the family made to get the photograph of Peters’ remains had been fruitless despite a promise by Raketa in their last conversation to get the photograph of Peters’ remains across to the family.
“Earlier, we were told to pay the sum of 5000 CFA to get Peter’s autopsy report,” Paul said.
“Bisi told me that if I came to Ivory Coast, she would take me to the embassy.
“She said the embassy would assist me, we would be able to bury my brother and I would be able to come back to Nigeria.
“That is how far we have gone,” he added.
Appealing to the Nigerian government, Gift said: “If Peters is dead, they should let us see the video. They just posted his photo on Facebook; we are not sure that he is dead.
“Ivory Coast is not a place you can rush to, especially when you don’t know anybody there.”
The family said it gathered that Peters’ house and shop had been locked up by the Ivorian police.
It was gathered that Peters was once married to an Ivorian woman, they had two kids together but are separated.
“We don’t even know his kids. If we had seen his phone, we would have been able to recognise his kids,” a family member lamented.
Our correspondent sent a mail to the official e-mail of the Nigerian embassy in Ivory Coast and a message to the embassy’s official line on Thursday, but at the time of writing this report, the embassy had responded to neither the mail nor the message.
