Mystery of the floating corpses in Anambra State

Source: Sun News

If there are any doubts that Nigeria is a country in which horror walks on four legs, and life has no value at all, the latest report of 18 male corpses found floating in Ezu River in the border between Enugu and Anambra States, last Saturday, should lay those doubts to rest.

The discovery of the corpses by fishermen in the part of the river at Amansea, in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State, is many notches higher the regular horror stories emerging from different parts of the country.

This is not like the case of four young students killed by a baying mob that joined the list of atrocities in Nigeria, last year. It is different from the case of a young woman who simply went to the house of her married lover and strangled his four children to death, that was reported in the Sunday Sun of January 20. Continue after the cut...

This is not the case of the Apo Six – five young traders and a lady – killed by policemen, who are yet to be brought to book in Abuja. It is not Boko Haram planting bombs in churches and reaping a grim harvest of deaths.

The case of the floating corpses in a river in Anambra State is not our regular Nigerian fare of horror stories whose perpetrators are often very well known, and the motives quite clear.

This is a dastardly situation in which 18 corpses simply floated out of a river that serves as source of water to some people in that part of the country. Who dunnit? (Pardon me). Who killed these people whose corpses were found floating in the river? Who, exactly, are these dead persons? Where, how and when were they dumped in the river?

This, indeed, is a horror story of no mean dimension. It is a story of reality reading far stranger than fiction! This latest tragic story out of Nigeria reminds me of the case of the headless body of a young Nigerian boy that was found floating, I think, in London’s River Thames, some years ago. The London Metropolitan Police turned Britain upside down trying to determine the person responsible for such dastardly act.

The police authorities in that country spared no efforts at all. Police investigators were sent down to Nigeria and they were able to establish that the boy hailed from the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, somewhere, if my memory serves me right, around Edo State. This, they arrived at following traces of some rocks in that part of the country in his bones, or something like that. The people behind the despicable act were determined, arrested, prosecuted, and jailed.

In this case of the floating corpses in Eku River, Nigeria needs nothing less than the seriousness, commitment and tenacity displayed by the London Police to bring the killers of the little Nigerian boy, who, I think, was nicknamed “Boy Adam” to justice. This is not one case in which official pussyfooting or dilly-dallying should be employed until it is forgotten.

This should not be a Farouk Lawan scandal in which a member of the House of Representatives who confessed to collecting hundreds of thousand of dollars from oil magnate, Femi Otedola, could neither be made to cough out the money, nor punished in any way for taking the entire country for a fool, all because the House is not interested in bringing one of its own to justice.

This should not be handled like the Oteh – Hembe scandal, either. The Ezu River corpses case deserves serious attention to determine the circumstances behind the heinous act. Luckily, the Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, has demonstrated his appreciation of the seriousness of this development by cutting short his overseas trip. He has, on behalf of Anambra and Enugu State governments, offered N5 million reward for any clue leading to the unraveling of the secret behind the floating corpses.

The objective is to determine who dumped the dead bodies in the river. The governor spoke the mind of all Nigerians when he described the dumping of the corpses as unacceptable, and vowed, on behalf of Anambra and Enugu State governments, to ensure that no stone is left unturned in the quest to unravel the mystery. The Ezu River tragedy is a challenge to the Nigerian Police and the entire country.

The dumping of the corpses in the river is a dirty slap on the entire country. It is a despicable act which diminishes us as a people. Nigeria cannot afford not to get to the bottom of this case. If we fail to unravel this case, we will become the laughing stock of the whole world. And life, in Nigeria, will be made to look so cheap as to be sold at two for a naira.

To get to the root of this problem, the authorities must use forensic science, intelligence, traditional and all available avenues to get answers to how the dead bodies got into the river. The first step, I believe, should be to identify some of the corpses. When names are put to some of them, it will be possible to determine their families and residences with a view to knowing when they got missing, whether they were kidnapped, or who had custody of them, be it police, kidnappers or whoever, before they disappeared. The circumstances behind their disappearance will go a long way in determining how they got into the river.

The cause of death, whether by drowning, gunshots or strangulation, will also help the investigation. This is a test case, which the Nigerian Police must not fail to unravel. Failure to determine how these corpses got into the river will suggest lack of respect for human life and a total lack of requisite know-how on the part of our police. If the Nigeria Police cannot solve this case, it may be necessary to review the basis for calling the outfit a force.

For now, the natural thing is for people to imagine that the corpses are those of armed robbery or kidnap suspects in the custody of security agencies who are, rightly or wrongly, widely believed to be involved in extra-judicial killings in the country. Yet, another school of thought is that they may be victims of kidnappers whose people refused to pay ransom to get them released, hence the decision to kill them.

Yet another line of thinking is that they may have been evacuated from a mortuary when they were unclaimed by their relatives, hence the decision to offload them to the river. But then, why would mortuary authorities or kidnappers dump corpses in the river, instead of just burying them? This is why the police must determine the facts of this grave development. Other security agencies should also be involved. The floating of these bodies at the same time suggests that they are likely victims of a mass murder, by whoever.

It is this who, where, what, how and for what reasons these people died and were dumped inside the river that Nigerians are anxious to know. This is a challenge for the Inspector General of Police and his team. They must not disappoint Nigerians. Is it necessary to tell the present leaders of the Police that this is one of the cases that will determine public perception of their tenure? This saga of the floating corpses should, therefore, not be swept under the carpet.