A 70-year-old native doctor Chukwujekwu Onuorah has been nabbed in Anambra State in connection with the abduction and beheading of a member of the Anambra State House of Assembly, Hon Okechukwu Okoye.
Okoye represented Aguata 11 constituency of the state governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo in the Assembly before he was abducted along with his aide, Cyril Chiegboka on May 15, 2022, by a gang of hoodlums in Isuofia, Aguata local government area and his decapitated head later found in Nnobi, Idemili-South local government area of the state.
An Onitsha-based human rights group, International Society for Civil Liberty and Rule of Law (Intersociety) revealed yesterday that a native doctor in Unubi community, Nnewi-South local government area of Anambra State, Onuorah has been arrested by the operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) in connection with the legislator’s abduction and beheading.
The chairman of Board of Trustees (BoT) of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi, said Onuorah was “technologically trailed after he was found to have used the beheaded lawmaker’s (Okoye’s) sim-card to make criminal calls,” adding that it was further found that the native doctor also had a hand in other heinous crimes in the South East region.
Giving details, Umeagbalasi said, “His (Onuorah’s) arrest was in connection with the abduction, disappearance, beheading and decapitation of Hon Okechukwu Okoye, an Isuofia Aguata-born Anambra State Assembly lawmaker who was abducted on 15th May, 2022.
“It should be recalled that Intersociety had in its statement of 26th May, 2022 (Killing of Northern Muslim Mother and her Children in Anambra…), independently disclosed the arrest of ‘some soft targets’ (an Okada rider and an automobile mechanic) over the dastardly act and named Unubi as the location of the scene of the heinous crime(s).”
He added, “The slayers of the kidnapped/beheaded lawmaker were earlier traced to Unubi where ransom running into millions of naira (some say, N20m) was physically delivered. The slayers collected the ransom and still went ahead to slay and decapitate the lawmaker.”
Umeagbalasi stated that the native doctor proved very tough during the operation to arrest him before he was eventually subdued by the DSS operatives.
According to the Intersociety leader, “He (Onuorah) made a magical escape after several gunshots were fired at him and he escaped by jumping into a ditch. After recovering several incriminating items including guns and bullets and his portrait, the operatives trapped him by leaving behind one of his cell phones. Between late night of 30th May and early hours of 31st May, 2022, the cell phone was tracked to a private hospital in Awka forcing the operatives of the DSS to storm the clinic where he was arrested alive in bandage while trying to board a tricycle.”
When contacted for his reaction, the spokesman of the police in the state, deputy superintendent of police, DSP Ikenga Tochukwu said he would not want to divulge information on security operations going on now in the state against criminals so as not to jeopardise the exercise.
He said, “Be patient with us. We don’t want to disclose some of our strategies. Let them know that the Command is not folding its hands in unmasking these killers.
“These things are intelligence-driven and there are already eyewitnesses. In due time, we will let Nigerians know as we will bring all the perpetrators to book. Please, help us to tell Nigerians that a lot is being done,” Tochukwu appealed.
