From Stanley Uzoaru Owerri
Parents of the late Chukwuma Daniel Ojugele of Umuahum, Ndegwu, in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, are still finding it difficult to believe that their only son, who was killed by armed robbers, penultimate week, is no more.
The grieving parents, in an emotional voice, recounted how their son was killed by hoodlums in the World Bank area of Owerri, the Imo State capital. Mr. Emmanuel Ojugele, father of the young POS operator, was actually in pain because of the dreams and promises of a better life, which the deceased made to the family.
Ojugele, who is surviving through his small-scale farming, said his son, 23 years old before his life was cut short by the robbers, had promised to complete the building where they are residing. The family of five often goes to bed without dinner because of poverty.
“My son would always say to me, Daddy, don’t worry, when I come back from work tomorrow, I will get something for us to eat. I always trusted him, and he did as he promised. Sometimes he even left the food for us in the morning; he would just take some garri with him, while his two sisters, the mother and I managed it.
“My son suffered a lot; he never wanted to end as a POS operator. It was because of the situation he found himself in. After he finished his secondary education and there was no money to further his education, he decided to work as a labourer.
“It was where he was working that he found an additional job as a guard in a hospital, to augment his N20,000 monthly salary from the first job he was doing. When he closed from one job, he went to the other.
“He started earning N20,000 each from the two jobs, and the locations were close to each other. He saved some money to buy a bicycle to ease his movement to the two places where he worked. His hustle paid off and he was able to buy a POS machine of his own. He was so happy that he assured me that everything would be all right. He had promised to be an artisan, an electrician, as a matter of fact.
“But his dream has been cut short. My hope is only in God now. I remember his last words before he went to work in the morning of the day he was shot. We had cut some cassava stems, ready to plant them, but there was no money to hire workers that would plant them. So he promised to give us money on his return that evening, but he couldn’t give us because they took him away from us.”
Narrating how his son was killed, Mr. Joseph said: “We were waiting for him to come back that day, but we didn’t see him at the normal time he used to come back. At about 9pm, we got a call from his former boss, a woman she had worked for as a POS operator before he left three years ago.
“My daughter picked the call and asked who it was, and she demanded to speak with an elder in the family. I started feeling nervous and my daughter asked her to go ahead and talk. It was then she told her that my son was unconscious in the hospital. Before we got to the hospital that she directed us it was already 10pm, only for us to see him lying lifeless. I called him Nnaa, as I fondly called him, twice, and he did not respond. It then dawned on me that I had lost my only son”.
Also narrating vividly how his son died in tears, Mr. Ojugele said: “I was told my son had closed at his normal time, a few minutes after seven. He had packed his things and only wanted to take the last table inside when one of the hoodlums grabbed him from behind while the others on four motorcycles surrounded him. They first gave him a machete cut at his stomach before shooting him on the wrist. He was short four times.”
Ojugele has always been a victim of circumstances. When he was living in Aba, Abia State, where he raised his children, he was said to have lost a large portion of his ancestral land to land grabbers who left only a small portion for him. The portion he was left could barely contain an access road, but since he had no money to seek redress in court, he resigned to fate hoping that one day his son would take him out of abject poverty. At the moment, he lives in an uncompleted bungalow with his family.
Corroborating his story, his wife, Mrs Ngozi Ojugele, said: “I have lost an honest son, a wise son who knows the pains of his parents; may God bless his soul. He has been the reason why we ate, despite how weak his father is, he tries to support the family. But Chukwuma will never allow him to do hard work; he tries to provide for the family”.
Mr. Ojugele called on the security agents in the state to unravel the death of his son.
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