Journalist Brutalised, Attacked By Suspected Kidnappers For Publishing Alleged Murder Of Anambra Technical Committee Chairman’s Wife

An Anambra State-based journalist and publisher of Bellnewsonline.com, Augustine Onyekachukwu Ike-Ikedoji, on Monday narrowly escaped from the grip of abductors alleged to be thugs from the suspended Nnewi North Technical Committee Chairman, Mbazulike Iloka.
Narrating his ordeal to SaharaReporters, Ikedoji said that his attempted abduction at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, during which he was brutalised before he narrowly escaped was connected to his publication of conspiracy and attempt by Iloka to cover up the real cause of his wife’s death.

The online media publisher had published a report in which photos of the deceased showed bruises, indicating domestic violence or something of the sort against the claim by the husband that she merely slumped and died while trying to serve him food.
Speaking with SaharaReporters, Ikedoji said, “It was tentatively believed that he came back and the wife was angry and they fought and he tried to beat her and she died.
“I told my editor that if that is the working theory, the corpse would prove it because if she was battered, the corpse was still fresh and any wound had not healed. I told him that we needed to get the picture of the corpse.
“In less than three hours, he got the pictures and sent them to me. I looked at the pictures and saw that the woman had bruises all over her body. I told my editor that the story was a sensitive one and the people involved were very powerful in Nnewi. They are the ones that put up security, town union, everything. They are being governed by business moguls in Nnewi and they are the ones that decide everything. The people that are his boys are called the BBA Ibeto Boys. They do anything and get away with it.
“I told the editor to just publish, ‘Mbazulike Iloka’s wife dies’ and put those photos because those photos will speak for themselves. That was how we published the news. Just the photos, and in the afternoon, the editor told me that since the man (Iloka) has a story, we can add it, and that was how he quoted the man that his wife slumped while serving him food.
“In the evening, he told me that the village people of the wife were protesting and they requested an autopsy. I told him to get the phone number of a brother of the deceased and give to me. He got it and sent to me and I sent messages to the brother that I am a journalist investigating the death of his sister and that I wanted to speak with him.
“He called me later and told me that they were going for an autopsy, and we added that to our story. I asked him where he was and he said he was at the Teaching Hospital. I told him I was busy but I could quickly see him and proceed to where I was going.
“I then went to the Teaching Hospital but I didn’t know it was an ambush. Immediately I alighted from my car, some group of men rounded me up and started making calls saying “look at him here. We have gotten him. Bring car, we have him.”
“I asked them what happened and they said that I broke into the Teaching Hospital mortuary, took photos of a corpse there and published.
“The Chief Security Officer of the hospital came and invited me for questioning in his office but the gang also refused but he insisted and that was how he took me to their security house by the gate. It was inside the security house that he told me that he did not know most of the gang members and that I needed to escape.
“I asked him to open the door for me and immediately he opened the door, I jumped out of the office and one of them gave me a blow but my friends were already around, so I ran and one of them pursued me shouting ‘thief, thief’ while the rest fought with my friends.
“I ran to my car parked about 200 meters away from the hospital but getting to my car, the one pursuing after me unleashed teargas on me. I tried and pushed him away, got into the car and while my driver tried to reverse, he spread the teargas into the car, blinding my driver and I was the one helping him control the car as we escaped.”
Meanwhile, all efforts to get the comment of the suspended Technical Committee Chairman, Mbazulike Iloka, on the incident did not yield results as Iloka did not answer calls made to his phone number nor respond to text messages sent.