Standard Gazette has gathered details of how a member of the vigilante killed a grandmother and an innocent bystander were killed in broad daylight in Benin city.
On Thursday, 20 May, it was a perfect day on Efehi Street, Off College Road Aduwawa, in Benin city, until calamity struck.
The problem started when some local vigilante members, Osagie aka “Stone” and Charles Oseghale, also known as “Agada”, entered the neighbourhood at about 10:00hrs.
The two street thugs had been smoking cannabis Sativa (Indian Hemp) while at the same time drinking various alcoholic substances.
Osagie Known As Stone
In what started like Gun turned bloody when Stone ordered his errand boy, Agada, to board his stationed Tricycle (Keke) to fetch him (Stone) his double-barrel Gun.
The incident led to the death of two people, a grandmother Mrs Lucy Nwaorie and her customer, Mr Tony Bassey Imo.
Narrating the ordeal, Mrs Nwaorie oldest son, Nwaorie Christopher Uche, said that when Agada returned, Stone ordered the tricycle rider, Nuru, to leave while he ordered his errand boy to get him a packet of bullets.
“He then told his accomplices that he wants to warm the area,” Christopher said.
Concerned residents opposed the ideas, but Stone rebuffed them and loaded his Gun with the help of Agada as he had earlier fractured his hands.
“Immediately after loading the Gun, Stone raised the Gun backing my mom’s shop and laid it on his shoulder, and then he fired a shot that hit my mother, Mrs Lucy Nwaorie and her customer Mr Tony Bassey Imo.
“My mom shouted that she had been shot, and they bled profusely; stone called Nuru, to whisk him away with his Gun.”
Standard Gazette gathered that the neighbours, patriotic Nigerian police nearby, and passers-by rushed Mrs Nwaorie and Tony to Our Clinic Hospital.
Tony was pronounced dead, and his corpse dumped at the embalmment section of the hospital, while the grandmother was redirected to Specialist Hospital on doctor’s referral.
“At the hospital, doctors confirmed my BundlehasJoy dead, and she was conveyed back to Aduwawa Police Division where a case file have been initially established, and the Police hierarchy assigned another Police Officer who went with us to deposit her Corpse at Our Clinic Embalment Section,” Christopher said.
“What baffles me most was how God saved my Three Months Old Baby whom Tony was carrying when these daredevil men struck.”
Standard Gazette learned that Mrs Nwaorie, a mother of seven, had been a source of hope and survival for the family since the death of her husband.
Christopher said, “The other victim, Tony, had three months old and his wife has been made a widow by the recklessness of a vigilante member.”
He appealed to Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, Inspector General of Police, Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone 5, the police commissioner, the Judiciary and Justice seekers to help secure justice for the family.
The family is worried as they overheard Stone bragging that “this is a small case considering the one I had been involved in previously”
“We, the families, are tendering this passionate appeal because we don’t want this crime to be swept under the carpet.”
SG reported on Thursday how Stone abandoned his victims and handed himself to the local police.