Sixty-three years old Ikechi Oluwene woke up, penultimate Sunday, took his bath after sending all members of his nuclear family to the church, and with a Holy Bible in hand, he trudged the streets of Rumuakunde community in Emohua Local Government Area, Rivers State, “preaching the gospel”.
Those who saw him said they over heard him saying that witches were tormenting him and they thought he was prophesying.
Moments later, Oluwene adorned in his Sunday best, returned home. He took a cutlass, tip-toed behind his late brother’s 52-year-old wife, Mrs. Patricia Oluwene, who was washing clothes, and killed her.
However, he did not bolt after the incident. Rather, he locked himself inside his room and by the time hysterical neighbours broke the door open, he was lying stone dead on the floor.
What will make an elderly man hack his late brother’s wife to death and then take his own life? This was the question on many lips when- journalists visited the Rumuadunde community.
A family member, who reporters to the exact spot where the incident happened said: “It is a strange act; we have not seen this kind of thing in our family before.”
He confirmed that Olumene left home with a Bible shouting that witches were disturbing him only to slay his late brother’s wife on return, adding “her last words as he butchered her were ‘Ikechi has killed me, Ikechi has killed me’.
“When he saw neighbours coming, he dashed into his room and locked the door. They banged the door shouting at him to open it but he refused. They had to force the door open only to find his lifeless body in a pool of his own blood. Nkechi had sliced his own throat with the same cutlass with which he slaughtered his late brother’s wife.”
A source, who said Ikechi probably took time to plot the murder, alleged that the deceased even sold his only choiced property a motorcycle and gave the proceeds to his wife before committing the act.
A neighbour who also shared the same view, observed that Ikechi sharpened his cutlass consistently for four days before the sad incident.
The neighbour said: “He always came out there (pointing at a spot in the compound) to sharpen his cutlass. I saw him do it for four
days.”
He said late Ikechi was perhaps frustrated because he had five female children and lost four of his male children to strange circumstances. His widow could not be reached for comment.
Late Patricia was a nice woman. Another member of the family, Mr. Dimkpa Oluwene spoke glowingly of the late Patricia, saying she was a friendly and jovial lady, who did not deserve to die the way she did.
He said: “We are deeply pained because the woman in question does not have problem with any member of the family, not even Ikechi, who caused her unexpected death.
“Ikechi never reported the woman to the family in relation to any offence. The only complain he had, and we think it was a mere assumption, was when he said the woman’s prayer disturbed him every day. The woman was a Christian and prayed every night.
“We knew that Ikechi liked living in isolation. He would not eat your own and was also not ready to bring his own. If you gave his children gift, he would return the gift to you.
‘As an Okada rider if he carried any of his family members, he would not accept your money, so everybody in the family learnt to avoid him. I do not know the kind of human being Ikechi was because all his acts were strange.”
Dimkpe said youths had to take the remains of Ikechi to an evil forest because he committed suicide; an act that was a taboo in the area. He said: “What he has done is a big taboo in the land.
The land of Emohua and Ikwerre forbid shedding of blood. We do not shed blood, not to talk of the blood of your own relative.
‘The worst of it is that Ikechi committed suicide, which is the worst of the sacrileges. Immediately the youths recovered his corpse, they took it into the evil forest; he does not deserve burial rites because he committed suicide.”
