A housewife, Mrs Ifebuchukwu Onyeishi, has narrated how her husband, Chidi Onyeishi in connivance with a nonagenarian pastor, allegedly killed their seven-year-old son for money ritual in Enugu.
Narrating the incident to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday at her residence in Enugu, Onyeishi said she was heartbroken and in disbelief that her beloved husband could kill their third child for money ritual.
She said, On October 20, my husband, a keke driver, who had been caring for the family of three boys, three girls including me and himself refused to provide for us.
He became harsh to us and I asked him the reason for the sudden change but he said nothing.
Though he had been complaining of his Keke disturbing him as he kept repairing it with his little saving, I advised him that the children and I were not complaining and would manage.
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The housewife said on the same day, she discovered that her 3rd child, Chimdalu, was missing and all efforts to locate his whereabouts proved abortive.
We searched everywhere but we could not find him. I called my husband severally but he was not responding but he later called back in the evening and I told him that our son was missing.
My husband said he knew nothing about his whereabouts. He left the house and came to tell me that where he went to inquire, that he was told that the child was taken out of Enugu.
At that moment, I began to pray and my husband too went to his altar in the house and prayed as well.
Onyeishi said she kept insisting that her husband knew where their son was because all fingers were pointing at him as neighbours saw him last with the child.
She further said that her husband on his own went to the Chairman of the Neighborhood Watch where he confessed to killing his missing child for money ritual.
The mother of six children said the matter was reported to the Central Police Station, Coal Camp, Enugu who came and arrested him.
Seeing him with the exhumed corpse of my son, I felt that my world has collapsed.
And my annoyance was that he followed us in search of him while he was the one that killed him, she cried.
She added that since the incident, people in her street had been catering for her and her five children, adding that none of the husband’s family has visited them since the incident.
Onyeishi, who hails from Nsukka in Enugu State, appealed to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and well-meaning Nigerians to support her and her family as the breadwinner was no longer providing for them.
My remaining five kids are aged 10, nine, five and three years old respectively while the last one is seven months old and we live at the mercy of my neighbours.
I know that we are suffering now but the government should not release him. He must pay for his crime, she added.
A neighbour, who pleaded anonymity, said the boy was such a promising child before his death.
The neighbour described the boy’s father as ‘callous’, adding that he ought to be killed the manner he killed his son.
When NAN visited her residence at no 25 Taylor street at Coal Camp, she and her five children had moved to a neighbour’s house next to her building.
Meanwhile, police preliminary investigation revealed that the husband confessed to the crime and led Police Operatives to the arrest of one Pastor Okeke Eneokwor, 95, who he fingered as an accomplice.
He led Police Operatives and medical team to a stream in Abakpa-Nike, Enugu, where the decomposing corpse of the minor was exhumed from a shallow grave.
The Commissioner of Police, Abubakar Lawal, who confirmed the incident ordered a thorough investigation that would lead to the arrest and prosecution of everyone found culpable in the act.