A sister of one of the four University
of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) students brutally murdered last Friday in Umuokiri
village, Aluu, Rivers State, has narrated how her younger brother and his
friends were lynched. Miss Ibisobia Elkanah, elder sister of
Tekena Friday Elkanah, revealed yesterday that policemen visited the scene
where the students were burnt to death after they were severely injured and
that one of the law enforcement agents told the perpetrators of the dastardly
act “to burn them alive”
The murdered students, Chiadika
Lordson, Ugonna Kelechi Obusor, Mike Lloyd Toku, and Tekena Elkanah, all part
two students, were murdered in cold blood over alleged theft of a laptop
computer and a blackberry phone. Ibisobia, a part-time final year student of
Marketing, at the same university who witnessed the incident, said on that
fateful day, at about 7.30 am, she was at the house of her girl friend in the
community when she heard people shouting outside. “I dashed out and beckoned on
my friend to come since she lived in the area.
attention. I went there but did not actually see or recognize any of them, due
to the crowd. “I heard when people were saying the people they (vigilance group)
caught were strangers; that they want to burn them.
questions, so that they could know their senders.” She said after that, she
went back to her friend’s house, but could not stay there. “I went back again.
I went through the bush path so that I could see them properly. I started
jumping to see if I could see them. I jumped again but saw nothing. I jumped
the second time and I saw Tekena. Tekena happened to be my brother. “I told
myself that I was not seeing well, this thing is a lie. I jumped the third
time, I saw Lloyd (one of the victims). So, I started shouting.
came, they said they were not known; that they were strangers. As I identified
them, I started shouting. Ibisobia said she continued shouting that Tekena was
her brother, saying that he came to her on Thursday in school and she gave him
his school fees. “I told them that somebody should allow me to ask him what
happened and what he came to do. He would confide in me. He was wailing and in
a pool of blood.”
many years. I saw them as they lay in the water naked with leaves covering
their nakedness.” His elder sister said she struggled and entered the crowd.
Somebody shouted “Who is that? What is she doing inside?” “People were pushing
me and I started crying. He is my brother! He is not a thief! Somebody behind
me said O’girl run for your life.
you sure he is your brother, and said may be I was the person that sent him to
go and steal.” Ibisobia replied them that how could she send him, that she did
not look as such. ‘They said I should run for my life that I would be the next
one, fifth person.” The young lady lamented that before she could get to her
friend’s room to call her family members, she learnt that the mob had taken
them to the burrow pit. “So, I went there again.
coming. The police van came, went into the mob and they were talking to them
(youths). The people kept quiet as police were making statements. “I heard them
laughing. You know, they were happy. They kept quiet again. Police talked and
they laughed again. The next was for me to see three policemen coming out of
the mob, boarded their van. And, one of the said “burn them alive”. “I must
confess, I was gripped with fear.
that said they should be burnt alive. As soon as they (police) drove off, I saw
the flames. I was thinking they burnt them after they had killed them. Later, I
discovered that they were burnt while they were alive.
