Fresh details have finally emerged as to how a suspected gang of organ harvesters and ritual killers disguising as friends killed a Dubai-based man, Obaze Chikezie Idenyi, and dismembered his body.
The victim’s wife, Blessing, and a brother of hers, Kenneth Chiabuotu Odanwu, told our correspondent that the late Idenyi was killed by a gang of cannibals from Mgbo, Iziangbo in Ohaukwu Local Government Area, and Izzi in Izzi Local Government Area both in Ebonyi State.
Blessing, who spoke through his brother, Kenneth, said her husband was a former naval officer who came back to Nigeria last year to get married to her after they had dated for more than 10 years.
Kenneth, in an interview, described the late Idenyi as a loving and kind-hearted man who was always putting the interest of others before his. He said it was his benevolent nature that made him to stay back for more than one year for the wife to conclude her programme before they would both move back to his base in Dubai.
Kenneth said: “His name is Obazi Chikezie idenyi, and he is an indigene of Umuogodoakpu in Ohaukwu Local Government Area.
“He was actually based in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). He came back in April last year and wedded our last born, Blessing.
“He eventually decided to stay back until his wife finished youth service so that they would go back together. “
Kenneth traced the genesis of the crisis to March when two indigenes of the community introduced the victim to some persons from neighbouring Iziangbo.
He said: “The wife said around March this year, there were two boys from Umuogodoakpu.
“One of them named Fabian also came back from abroad. The other one is named Odii Chibu.
“They were actually the ones doing business with Iziangbo people.
“In March, they came to Chikezie (Idenyi) and asked him to lend them N1 million, saying that there was a business they were doing but the money they were using have been exhausted.
“Chikezie told them that since he came back from Dubai last year, many people had borrowed money from him but failed pay to back. So for him to give them the money, he would need to see the people they were doing the business with and also know the nature of the business.
“So Fabian and Chibu Odii took him to those Ezamgbo guys.
“He used to call them Chief and Elechi. We have now come to find out that Chief’s real name is Innocent Ajim Elebe from Iziangbo while Elechi is a native doctor in the village there.”
Kenneth said since Chikezie was introduced to the duo, his behaviour changed and his financial management also changed as he would leave the house at odd hours and make withdrawals from his wife’s account where he deposited some money and could access through the automated teller machine (ATM) card.
“So, according to the wife, they would call him in the night and he would leave the house. At other times, he would leave very early in the morning.
“The wife became worried and started asking him if the people that were always calling him were not aware that he was a married man. She also wondered what business he was doing with them.
“But each time the wife raised an objection, he would tell her to stop selecting friends for him because he wasn’t selecting her own friends for her.
“At a time, they asked him to get a SIM card and a small phone. It became so bad that any time they called, he would leave the wife, entered another room and locked the door to take their calls.
“The trend continued for some time and they were collecting money from him. At various times, they collected amounts ranging between N3 million and N5 million.
“On one particular occasion, according to the wife, they were going to the village and they got to the entrance to St Augustine’s Seminary where there is a road that leads to Elebe’s family home, and the husband parked the car and went to meet them.
“After some time, he came back and asked her to transfer N2 million into his own account. The wife explained that she had done a lot of transactions that very day and had almost exhausted her limit.
“She later transferred N990,000 to him that night. And in the morning, the wife received an alert for withdrawal of N1,100, 000. He was using the wife’s ATM because he deposited his money in her account.
“So the wife called him and asked if he was the one that withdrew the money and he said yes, that it was meant to complete the N2 million.”
Kenneth noted that the trend continued till September 14 when he told the wife that he was traveling to Lagos on a business trip with a friend who owns a hotel in Abakaliki.
“The wife did not believe him, so she asked if he was traveling with the friend or with the people that had been collecting money from him.
“The wife also asked why he was travelling to Lagos by road when he normally travelled even shorter distances by flight, because he was a naval officer and the pains from the accident he had when he was in service was till disturbing him.
“Even when he was driving around Abakaliki, he would sometimes parked to stretch his legs. So because of that, he does not make long journeys.”
Kenneth noted that because he parked his car and said they would be using the friend’s car, his wife questioned him about it and this led to a minor quarrel between them before he left.
Kenneth also noted that the victim left the house around 5pm on the said journey and around 8pm, the wife called him and asked if they had left, but he told her that they were about to move.
“She ended the call, dropped the phone and went into the house. When she came back, she saw a missed call from him and called him back but he didn’t pick the call.
“Later, the number stopped connecting and this made the wife to become more worried.
“The next day, being 15th, the wife called me and told me that her husband said he was travelling to Lagos but since then his number was not connecting.
“I said it could be that his phone’s battery was dead, but she said even in such situations he normally used another phone to call. I said maybe it was network problem.
“The next day, she became more agitated and called me to come and escort him to the hotelier friend the husband claimed he was traveling with so that we could get his number from his workers and call him.
“So we came to town, got the friend’s number and gave it to our elder brother who is a millitary officer. He called the friend but the friend said he never traveled with him to Lagos and that he even celebrated his child’s birthday that Saturday night at his hotel.
“At that point, my sister became more convinced that he might have travelled with those friends he had been communicating with.
“So what my sister did was to call a friend in Iziangbo and asked him if he knew the men called Chief and Elechi. She said if he knew those two people, he should tell them to go and bring back her husband from wherever they kept him.
Kenneth said the family intensified their search for Chikezie, which led them to even go spiritual by visiting prayer houses where they were told that he was being held hostage but they should keep praying for his release.
They also went a step further by engaging the services of a tracker who tracked Chikezie’s phone numbers.
“So my Elder brother tracked his numbers and it showed Cross River as location. And this was someone who said he was travelling to Lagos.
“Later, my brother said he needed the call logs and we were able to get a tracker who tracked and got all the call logs for us.
“The officer that did the tracking asked my sister to check and see if she could identify any of the numbers. My sister checked and identified Chief and Elechi ‘s numbers.
“So the officer asked her who was Arinze, another number that called the husband, but my sister did not know who Arinze was.”
As this was going on , a message from the victim’s number was sent to his own elder brother.
It reads: “Brother Sunday, this is Obasi Chikezie, I am in Lagos, but I was held hostage by Fabian and Chibu Odii who said I spoke out against them in the village and this is payback time.”
The message made the family to become more agitated because the said Fabian and Chibu, who introduced him to Elechi and Chief from Ezamgbo were already missing since June.
“So it didn’t make sense that people who were missing since June were the same people he met in Lagos who allegedly took him hostage.
“When the wife saw the message, she said her husband didn’t send the message because on many occasions people have written his name as Obasi instead of Obazi, and he would tell them to correct it.
“My elder brother also analysed the message and concluded that he couldn’t have sent it or if he did, he did so under duress, because his elder brother has his number, so he would not start introducing himself to his own elder brother who already has his number.
At this point, the family reported the matter to the police.
According to Kenneth, his elder brother who is a naval officer had to come back and meet personally with the Commissioner of Police who then handed over the matter to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit.
The Anti-Kidnapping Unit quickly swung into action and arrested two suspects.
“They arrested the two principal suspects, Elechi and Chief. They claimed that they dumped him in one hotel in Ogun and it would be difficult to trace the hotel but mentioned one Arinze from Ngbo and one Alaba Solomon as the persons who would know the way to the place.
“During investigation, it was discovered that he withdrew another N3 million on Friday through a POS attendant at the stadium in Abakaliki, which he gave to the same people.
“Another friend who was with him said that after he withdrew the money, he answered a call from Chief and Elechi and then told him to wait for him that he was going to Ezamgbo. But the friend said it was already late and he was going home. But when Chikezie returned to his house that night, he did not come back with any money.
“So the first two suspects confessed how they shared the money among themselves ranging from N1m to N400,000. But Solomon denied knowing him, collecting money or traveling to Lagos with him.
With the suspects claiming that he was dumped in an Ogun State hotel, arrangements were made with the police to travel to Lagos with the suspects to trace the alleged hotel where he was dumped.
“But on their way to Ogun, when they got to Enugu, one of the suspects, Elechi, confessed that they should turn the bus around that the victim was not in Ogun State but in Ebonyi.
“When they charged and switched on Elechi’s phone that morning, a particular number kept calling him.
“They copied the number and tracked it. The location showed Ndubia side of Izzi LGA close to the boundary with Cross River State. They went and arrested him.
“When they went to arrest him, the guy was already wearing Chikezie’s clothes.
“It was the guy that took them to the bush at the boundary with Cross River and showed them the place they dumped the dismembered body. After that he also took them to another location where they kept his head.
“The police then called for an ambulance which came and took the dismebered body to a mortuary in town.
“When we got to the station, the police said we could interrogate the suspect. When I interrogated the Izzi guy, he confessed that it was Elechi and one other person that brought Chikezie.
’
He claimed that it was actually the suspects who told Chikezie to lie to his wife on the phone that they were about to move to Lagos and also that they were the ones that dictated the message he sent to his elder brother.
The suspect also confessed that it was after sending that message that they smashed his phone and Elechi and one other person put a black substance on his hand and aksed him to make some incantations but he should not look back.
“As he was doing that, they used a big stick to smash his head and he died. When they came back, they gave him (the Izzi suspect) N18,000, a bottle of gin and Chikezie ‘s clothes.
Confirming the incident, police spokesperson, Joshua Ukandu, said the command operatives from the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, through a painstaking investigation and credible intelligence bursted an organ harvesting ring allegedly responsible for the murder of the late Chikezie Idenyi.
He said the wife, Blessing, had reported to the command about her missing husband, who left home on September 14 on a supposed business trip to Lagos but was not heard from again.
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