He had successfully crossed over into the first day of the New Year filled with the high hopes of new things to achieve in 2017, but he did not have the premonition that he would not witness the end of that day.
Thirty-year-old Chizo Nwaeje Ojeoru Igweaji, an only son of his aged mother, was said to have gone outside his parents’ house to savour the fresh harmattan breeze whistling in the air, when he was hit by a stray bullet fired from the gun of one of the members of two rival cult gangs, who had engaged each other in a deadly clash in the community.
The two rival cult groups were said to have been terrorising the community for a long time. The two cult groups, identified as De-Gbam and the De-Well, had clashed over unclear issues on New Year day in Awarra in Umuoluka Umuonei Awarra Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State, creating panic and eventually throwing the entire community into mourning with the killing of Igweaji.
The victim’s aged mother, Madam Celina Ojeoru Igweaji, who cried, wailed and refused to be consoled, following the killing of her only son by the cultists, accused the gangs of killing her son in cold blood.
Madam Celina said that her son was deliberately murdered by the cult gangs because he was never a member of any of the groups. As she rolled on the ground wailing, the distraught mother called on the appropriate authorities to ensure that those behind the killing of her son were apprehended and punished.
Madam Celina lamented that she had been stripped naked with the killing of her son, who had been the breadwinner of the entire family since the death of her husband many years ago. She lamented, “This is the only son I have and he happened to be the bread winner of this family.
Those behind his untimely death should not go scot-free and must be punished. “He was not a member of any group and he has been taking care of me and his family after the death of his father.”
But sources in the community alleged that the late Igweaji had been serving as an “informant” and had been supporting one of the cult groups, the De-Gbam, each time the rival gangs had clashed in the area.
The rival group, De-Well, was said to have been pretending to be ignorant of the late Igweaji’s activities until the New Year day when they attacked and killed him during another clash with the members of the other gang.
Another source, who described the death of Igweaji unfortunate, alleged that the young man was actually killed by the members of a third gang, the Green Landers, who were invited to participate in the cult-war but had identified and labelled the deceased as a “saboteur and enemy.”
The source claimed that the Green Landers cult gang members opened fire on Igweaji and killed him while standing in front of his father’s house and watching the fighting between the three groups in the community
