By Cajetan Mmuta
Tension is brewing in Awka, the Anambra state capital following the arrest and death of Mr Dubem Okonkwo, a popular tricycle operator in the capital town.

The widow of the deceased, Mrs Ebere Okonkwo has alleged that police were paid to kill her husband in detention.

Dubem who was a member of the Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria (TOAN) Awka branch and was arrested by police on March 2022.

The widow of the motorcycle operator said that the breadwinner of the family was murdered at Awkuzu police cell in Oyi local government of Anambra State by the police without any offence.

Mrs Okonwko told newsmen that she was suspecting foul play in the way and manner her husband was arrested, detained and suddenly murdered in cold blood while in detention.

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

“He suffers from superiority complex”, AY speaks on beef with Basketmouth

Mrs Ebere Okonkwo disclosed that her husband went missing at Awkuzu police cell after he was paraded alongside others by the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Mr Echeng Echeng on 15th April 2022 at Police command headquarters.

The distraught widow wants the President Muhammadu Buhari, Inspector-General of Police, Women Affairs Minister, Governor Charles Soludo and well-meaning Nigerians to intervene for the family to get justice.

The mother of one added that the police picked up her husband at Unizik Junction Park, and the CP refused to tell the family or his association about his offence till he was allegedly murdered by the police.

COVID-19: North Korea reports first outbreak, orders “grave” lockdown

“Why did the police kill my husband in cold blood? I am suspecting that someone paid the police 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 and condemned by the court?

“My husband was “killed extra-judicially without trial and this must stop. My husband must not die in vain. We visited Anambra State Commissioner of Police Mr Echeng Echeng; Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Tochukwu Ikenga and Police formations across the state and no one was able to say the offence that my 48-year-old husband committed.

“Now that they have assassinated him in the cell. 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 the court? 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. Why was he murdered?”

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

She urged the various authorities to prevail on the Anambra CP to allow her to take her husband’s body and give him a befitting burial as demanded by Igbo culture and tradition.

Consider students and call off strike, Buhari appeals to ASUU

Police Public Relations Officer of the Anambra state police command, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga when contacted on Thursday said that the dead man’s case was with the commissioner of police.

Ikenga said the suspect was paraded by the commissioner of police himself on 25th April and the investigation is still ongoing.

The command’s spokesperson, however, did not confirm the late Okonkwo’s offence or whether he is alive or dead.

He also said that it is only the commissioner that can give further clearance on the matter.

Attempts to reach the commissioner of police on phone failed.