Obioma Ekeh, widow of late primary four school teacher, Paul Okeh, cries out over her husband’s death after a teargas canister fired by a policeman hit him during a protest, DGossip247 reports
For the family of Paul Okeh, a 34-year old teacher in Iduma Primary School Umuzoke village in Ezillo Community, Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, policemen attached to the state police command have kept them in perpetual agony. The family had expected Okeh to return home after the teachers’ verification exercise conducted by the state government in the area to fish out ghost workers two weeks ago. They waited in vain as they soon learnt that their bread winner had died after policemen fired teargas to disperse protesting teachers during the exercise.
The incident threw the family and the entire community into sorrow. When Sunday Telegraph visited the area penultimate Saturday, sympathisers who thronged the compound of the deceased wept uncontrollably.
In the wailing crowd was the teacher’s widow, Mrs. Obioma Okeh; their four children – Nnamdi (10 months); Franklin (three); Victor (five); and Udoamaka (seven); as well as the victim’s aged parents – Innocent Idenyi and Agnes Idenyi. Speaking to Sunday Telegraph, the widow said she was devastated at news about how her husband was killed. Okeh alleged that policemen caused her husband’s death by shooting canisters of teargas at him.
She said, “Policemen have killed my husband. They have made this life difficult for me by their action. I don’t know how I can survive by taking care of my children who are still at tender ages. My husband was so caring, so responsible. “He was the pillar of this family; taking good care of me, my children, his parents and brothers.
As the first son in his family, he carried big responsibilities; attending to everyone no minding his poor economic status. Now, a very big vacuum has been created by the action of the police because no one will take care of us anymore.
“Is it his aged parents or the younger ones my husband left who are still battling to survive that will take care of us? I am too young to be a widow. I’m seriously pained by the death of my husband. Who will pay my children’s school fees?
Who will solve my problems?’’ She called on the Commissioner of Police, Ebonyi State Command to fish out the officers that killed her husband. For her part, the mother of the deceased, Agnes Idenyi, said she still found it difficult to believe that her son who let home hale and hearty was dead. “I can’t believe that my son is dead. It can’t be true. I did not see him in the morning when he left for work.
I only heard his voice when he was leaving, when he told my daughter-in-law that he was on his way to work. What I am hearing that my son is dead may be a dream because I don’t know how I will survive. “I suffered to nurture him to this stage and it is time for him to take care of me and people are telling me that he was killed by policemen.”
She called on the state government to employ a member of the family into the civil service to replace the late Okeh so as to fill the gap created by his sudden demise.
“His children are still very young and their mother cannot carry the load of taking care of them alone. Government should employ another person from our family so as to assist in raising these little children,’’ she said. Narrating the circumstances that led to the death of Paul Okeh to Sunday Telegraph, an eyewitness and member of the community, Elisha Omebe, said teachers were at Ishielu Local Government Area headquarters for the verification exercise when a protest broke out. “Policemen were alerted and they immediately stormed the area. They fired teargas at the teachers to scare them away.
The shooting was so intense that many teachers collapsed and some sustained injuries. One of the canisters hit Paul Okeh and he slumped. We rushed him to the hospital but he did not reach there; he died on the way,” he explained.
Earlier, in a petition, the Chairman of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Ishielu branch, Comrade Ogbuzru Jacob, said, “Teachers were asked to sign the already prepared voucher containing teachers’ bank account numbers and old salary figures paid to them as at January 2015 before the verification.
“This they refused to sign and the attention of the team’s leader was called. He came and said that the criterion for the exercise was that the voucher must be signed before the verification. Also, he said that if the teachers were not ready to sign it, they should leave the hall and go home, but the teachers insisted that they must be verified. I even pleaded with him to allow them but he bluntly refused. It was then that the teachers grew annoyed and protested such intimidation.
“Around 1.30pm, all of a sudden, the Local Education Authority premises was covered with teargas fumes. We rushed out from the hall only to discover that the place was filled with policemen from Ishielu, led by the DPO.
They started shooting canisters of teargas indiscriminately, one of which incidentally hit one Comrade Paul Okeh, a teacher serving at Community Primary School, Ezillo. This eventually led to his death. His remains has been deposited at the General Hospital mortuary in Ezzamgbo.’’ When contacted on the telephone, the DPO of Ishielu Police Division referred Sunday Telegraph to the spokesperson for the state police command, DSP Chris Anyanwu.
When reached on the telephone, Anyanwu said the teachers barricaded the highway during the protest, forcing the police to use ‘minimum force’ to disperse them. He described the place as a volatile area owing to the Ezillo-Ezza Ezillo communal crisis which claimed over 70 lives two years ago.
“Ezillo is a volatile area. You are aware of what happened there two years ago when innocent people were massacred. Now peace has returned to the area and the police don’t not want fresh crisis in the place. “The police warned the teachers to move away from the highway but they did not heed. So, minimum force had to be used against them; and that was the (firing of) teargas,” he said.
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