Bereaved husband Leonard Onunkwo
Preparations for the dedication of the two months old son of Mrs Loricia Onunkwo, a Bauchi-based Igbo business woman, scheduled to take place on Sunday, November 9 at the Our Lady of Loretto Catholic Church, Fadama Mada Parish, Bauchi, turned to a nightmare for the Onunkwo family when the nursing mother was brutally killed by gunmen .
The killing, which took place on October 14, threw the Igbo community in Bauchi into mourning and wailing.
It was learnt that the victim, a mother of four, was a successful hybrid dealer in poultry farming in Bauchi.
On that fateful day that Mrs Onunkwo was murdered, Sunday Vanguard gathered that two gunmen trailed her after she closed for the day’s business at around 7 pm and was heading to her residence in Fadama Mada, a predominantly Muslim populated area.
When the deceased arrived at her residence, she horned for her children to open the gate in order to drive in her car. The gunmen, who were following her, were said to have entered into the house after the children opened the gate.
One of the children, 10 year old Makochwuwku, said he saw two men carrying gun walking towards his mother’s car. They shot her twice through the windscreen and made way with her handbag after demanding for money.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that the husband of the deceased, Mr Leonard Onunkwo, who was not in the house during the attack, returned from a church service, only to be greeted with the news of his wife’s death. Due to the shocking incident, he relocated his family to the GRA in Bauchi.
“The husband was not at home at the time of the attack. He went to church. The assailants were shouting ‘where is the money, where is the money’ before they shot her at close range,” one of the women leaders in the church where the family worships who pleaded anonymity said.
She described Loricia, an indigene of Ideato Local Government Area of Imo State, as a very friendly woman who “loved everybody, always cracking jokes, always happy”.
The church woman leader added: “If you are upset and you meet her, you will become happy. I don’t know why anyone would kill such a person. I have never heard of a woman being killed like that. Loricia never told us she had problem with anyone. It is simply painful and a mystery.”
She said the deceased was planning to dedicate her baby on November 9 but all her plans and dreams have been cut short.
The Christian woman leader explained: “We fixed second Sunday of November for the dedication at Our Lady of Loretto Catholic Church, Fadama Mada Parish and she was excited about it. She talked about it all the time as we almost concluded arrangements for the dedication of her baby. She called me to inform me that she had booked for the reception at Chaba Hotel and we made arrangement for cooking only to hear the news that she was killed. It is sad.”
An Igbo leader in state, who also pleaded anonymity, decried the killing of Loricia, saying her death had thrown her family and the Igbo community in Bauchi into great mourning. “Her death brings to four the number of Igbo killed in Bauchi. Her own is sad because she is a woman. We implore the police to bring the killers to books.”
When Sunday Vanguard visited the bereaved family at the G.R.A, where the husband and the children had relocated, relatives of the family, friends and neighbours were trooping to the house to condole with them over their loss.
The husband of the deceased woman, Mr Leonard Onunkwo, told Sunday Vanguard his wife might have been killed out of envy.
The widower said his wife was killed by some people who were not happy that she was making progress in her poultry feeds business, stressing that the world was so corrupt nowadays that anything could happen.
“The world we are living in is so corrupt. When you are living fine, some people will not be happy; when you are not living fine as well, some people will be happy”, he stated.
“Though I am not suspecting anybody, I know that what happened was out of envy because she was progressing and her business was booming. It might even be because they saw how we were living in peace. In such a thing, somebody can decide to put problem in one’s family”.
He said that what the assailants wanted was not money, but the life of his wife.
Narrating what happened, Onunkwo, who said he had lived in Bauchi since 1984 and got married to the deceased in 1993 in the town, explained that he was worshipping at Our Lady of Loretto Catholic Parish at Fadama Mada when his son came around 7pm on the day, crying profusely and asking him to ‘come out and see’.
He said that when he got home, he saw his wife in her car with gun wound, bleeding but still breathing.
“ I took the car keys and drove to the Tafawa Balewa Housing Estate Police
Station to report the incident from where a policeman followed me and someof my neighbours to the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital(ATBUTH)”, the bereaved husband said.
“When we were about approaching the teaching hospital, my wife gave up the ghost. But despite the incident, i am grateful to God because the Bible says in every situation we must be grateful to God.”
The second son of the deceased, Macochukwu Onunkwo, a student of Immaculate Conception Secondary School, Bauchi, said that his mother returned home that day at 7:15pm.
According to him, when he went to open the gate for her, he saw two gunmen.
“I saw two armed men coming with guns. The faced me and wanted to shoot me, so I ran inside. It was after I ran into the house that they shot my mother. The gunmen were not wearing mask, I can recognize one of them,” the 16-year-old said.
He, however, said that though he did not know if the two were customers of his mother; they might have shot her because she knew them.
A source close to the family said the deceased got a huge sum of money for supply of poultry feeds, adding that it might be the reason her killers followed her home in order to collect the money from her.
“Mrs Lorica was very hard-working and was a successful business woman who everybody admired. Her poultry business had been booming and this might have stirred the envy of her enemies,” the source said.
Reacting to the development, the Catholic Bishop of Bauchi Diocese John Malachi Goton, enjoined bereaved Leonard Onukwu, to forgive the killers just as he enjoined the police to fish out her killers.
Goton, who paid a condolence visit to the husband andchildren, including the two months old baby boy, Moses, said that although to forgive those who hurt us deeply might seem pretty difficult, it was commanded by God even in the most difficult situations.
The bishop, who noted that the deceased was the second victim from the diocese to be killed within one year in the state, condemned the killing of Mrs Onukwu, in front of her house.
“People who take the lives of their fellow human beings forget that they also would die tomorrow. I don’t understand why somebody will snuff the
life out of a nursing mother who is lawfully going about looking for her daily bread. This is no doubt a very trying moment for the family. But just like our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to forgive 70 times seven times, please find a place to forgive those who killed your wife so that you can receive mercy of God,” he said.
Goton, accompanied by Reverend Father Andrew Batari, the parish priest of Our Lady of Loreto Catholic Church, Fadama Mada, where the deceased was a devout member, then led a short prayer for the family and for the repose of the soul of the deceased.
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