…Whereabout Unknown, Declared Wanted By Police
BENIN CITY- The story has been reported in Benin about a lingering bloody and now life threatening crisis rocking a large family of fourteen, after the demise of the father of the home and after he was earlier predecease by his heir apparent in a mysterious manner.
According to a very reliable source, a septuagenarian, close family member, who wouldn’t want his identity revealed for fear of victimization said the genesis of the whole crisis actually started early October, 2014, long before the death of the bread winner of the home, Late Mr. Michael Ighodaro.
He said sometime in early October 2014, the eldest son of the family, a truck driver Mr. Osamuyi Michael was reported to have been mysteriously missing till date in his last trip to Kano State in the northern part of the country. His younger step brother Ikponmwosa Michael, who was drafted by their father to his eldest brother to train him as a motorboy apprentice, after he finished secondary school and a young adult at the age of eighteen, then, reported his sudden disappearance in Kano to the family in Benin, after much search.
The sad ordeal as reported by Ikponmwosa was that, on that fateful day when they got to Kano city late, they couldn’t finish offloading the goods they carried and then he was directed to sleep inside the truck, while himself the master (senior step brother) goes to the hotel to sleep and join them early next morning, but neither get to the hotel nor resume with them in the morning. After waiting endlessly, the worried Ikponmwosa, went in search of his master eldest brother all to no avail as he could not even explain what happended to him till tomorrow.
But when the sad news was broken to the family in Benin City the step mother (Osamuyi’s mother) Mrs Victoria Michael and her own family didn’t take to the report lightly.
She alleged that her son has been plying all roads in northern Nigeria, East and West, nothing happened to him untill now that he Ikponmwonsa started following him as a motor boy. He was accused of master-minding the disappearance, kidnaping and perhaps killing of her son, so that he can now suddenly become the eldest son from another mother to inherit their father’s properties when he dies.
This was an open and very direct false accusation which the young man Ikponmwosa bluntly, painfully and continuously denied in tears, but the accusers couldn’t listen. Even the both families had to meet severally over the matter and subjected Ikponmwosa to take oath in the family ancestral shrine, deities like Ayelala, Shango, Ovia e.t.c. to prove his innocense which he did without any hesitation.
Still not satisfied, the step mother’s family started applying all sorts of threat to his life, using unknown cultists, hoodlums to trace Ikponmwosa everywhere day and night. Luckily for him, he survived death by the whiskers one fateful day in 2015 as he was shot on his right hand, which almost led to his death, after bleeding profusely. After which he then relocated to Kano to save his life, when the problems became too much and nowhere to hide.
The source added that the whole episode took a different dimension, when their father died sometime in the last quarter of 2015 and Ikponmwosa was now asked to come down to perform the traditional burial rites as the surviving senior son. But he refused because of the insecurity and threat to his life all along.
The pressure on him to come from Kano where he was hidding to bury the father became so much that even Mr Jick, the Managing Director of the transport company he and his late eldest brother were working who is also very close to the family joined in the plea for him to do the needful as their late father cannot just be abandoned in the mortuary like that and promised him of adequate military security throughout the period the burial will last, which he later yielded to.
Immediately after the burial ceremonies that lasted too days instead of the usual seven days with serious plea to the ‘Okaegbe’ (most senior uncle) Pa. Osaro Godwin who presided over the funeral rites handed over the documents of the father’s house situated at No 6, Oronsaye Street, Off St. Saviour Road, Benin City. to him, saying its now his property henceforth, having successfully done the father’s burial. But this he refused collecting, pleading with the uncle that he was still too young for that as he is just starting life with a young wife, a child, two other young maternal siblings and their mother and he is not based in Benin City. He pleaded that the documents should still be in his possession first.
But after a while Ikponmwosa’s uncle called to inform him in Kano that he the (uncle) was under serious pressure, intimidation and attack from her step mother and her brother, a very influential and popular rich politician, Hon. Matthew Osazuwa to surrender the property document to them or face the consequence.
The uncle said the step mother and her cohorts said their missing son laboured too much for that house and cannot loose it to his younger step brother like that. They used tugs to evacuate Ikponmwona’s family from the house. saying, since their own is no more, Ikponmwosa too will never live to inherit the house. His mother had to run away to take refuge in her village and others to different directions.
However, when the whole problem became very unbearable with the advice and assistance from well wishers, Ikponmwosa Michael decided to sue the ringleader, Hon. Matthew Osazuwa and his step mother in the law court and the summons paper was served on him on the 29th January 2016. While his own senior uncle was a crown witness in the case During the first hearing of the case on the 4th of April, 2016, Hon. Osazuwa explained when asked by the Judge, his reason for resisting the family’s decision to hand over the house to the surviving eldest son, instead of his missing nephew Osamuyi Michael who is the well known biological eldest son that really laboured for that house with the father and not Ikponmwosa who is the junior and a motor boy apprentice to him. He added that Ikponmwosa stage managed and arranged everything so that he can become the senior to inherit the property, hence his nephew Osamuyi suddenly went missing and never seen again.
However, when it was done on the Honourable that Ikponmwosa will win the case, he went to plan another counter allegation, presenting fictitious evidence, photographs of his house with bullet holes that Ikponmwosa planned an attack to assassinate him on the 5th June 2016 at exactly 10:45pm, because they are in court. He sent political thugs, cultists and paid cattle herdsmen to go after Ikponmwosa and to make sure that he is completely eliminated.
Morever, he took the matter to the police who immediately sprang into action after been mobilized and declare Ikponmwosa Michael wanted. About a month after the hearing at the court, Mr. Jick called Ikponmwosa in Kano to inform him that he has been declared wanted by the police.
When contacted, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Ugbekun Police Divisional Head Quaters, Mr. Adenola Agidi (SP) confirmed the report saying that the allegation is a death sentenceable offence and that he has been officially declared wanted with a very serious one and that of a handsome reward of N5m (five million naira) for any successful informant that can lead to his arrest.
