By Ada Wodu, Punch Newspaper
A 19-year-old Senior Secondary School student, Stella Ndoma, has cried out over the murder of her father, Chief Mbayin Ndoma a.k.a. Otisco, in his hometown in Cross River State, and is seeking justice.
Stella called on the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, and the Cross River State Police Commissioner, Aminu Alhassan, to go after the killers of her father, which occurred on Wednesday, August 3, 2022, in his hometown in Cross River State.
Ndoma was allegedly murdered in his hometown, Orimekpang Junction, in the Boki Local Government Area of Cross River State for sending some youths suspected to be cultists into exile from the community.
According to Stella, “I was shocked when I learned that my late father, Mbayin Ndoma, who was a traditional ruler in Orimekpang Community, Boki LGA of Cross River State, was shot to death by hoodlums and not even a fly has been arrested in connection with his death.”
It was gathered that some young men in the Orimekpang Junction community in Boki LGA of Cross River State were last year sent into exile by the community for their alleged involvement in cult activities.
The development was said to have angered the banished young men who were said to have invaded the community at night and murdered Ndoma for sending them into exile.
On how her father was killed, Stella said her father got a phone call from an unknown caller who asked him to leave his home at about 12:20 am, claiming some assassins were coming to take away his life.
She said that immediately after her father fled his home, the assassins, suspected to be cultists, invaded her father’s home and harassed her father’s wife Queneth, and demanded to know her husband’s whereabouts and she told the assassins that her husband wasn’t at home.
She further narrated, “The assassins spent some time in their victim’s home waiting for the traditional ruler to return home, probably for them to unleash mayhem on him.
“At about 6am as my late father tried to return home from the community secondary school where he had gone to take refuge, the assailants attacked him, dragged him to the community secondary school Orimekpang, which is about a stone’s throw from the traditional ruler’s residence.”
She said after her step-mother heard the gunshots, and because her husband had not returned home, she ran to the community youths and informed them that she heard gunshots around the community school and that her husband had not returned home.
Stella said the community youths mobilized with the village vigilant and went to the secondary school premises, only to find the corps of the traditional ruler in the school.
“His assailants left a note on my father’s corpse with an inscription, ‘This is the beginning of war between the community and us. Any man who squeezes bitter leaf, his hands would be bitter,’ with another threat note, ‘Anyone who intends to dare us should wait for his turn,’”she said.
Contacted, the Cross River Police Public Relations Officer, SP Irene Ugbo, who confirmed the incident, said Police had begun a preliminary investigation in the LGA to fish out the killers.
“The Police are already liaising with the leaders of the community to find a way to apprehend the killers of the traditional ruler,” Ugbo said.
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