Damian Osuagwu is a Catholic priest of one of the orders of congregations of the church. On Saturday, August 15, 2015, the cleric with a doctorate degree observed his normal daily ritual of beginning the day with holy mass. After presiding over the exercise, Fr Osuagwu also indulged in conducting confession for the lay faithful who desired to seek repentance as enshrined in catholic doctrine.
Having discharged one of his primary functions as a priest, Fr Osuagwu set out for the days activities with an intention to perhaps embark on a spiritual reach out to a Chaplaincy at the Obinze Army Barracks, where he was said to have extended his spiritual services and set foot on the Imo State Polytechnic, main campus, Umuagwo, where he had functioned as a teaching staff and official in charge of a unit called SIWES.
From his Nekede old road abode, where the Claretian missionaries have a seminary and residence for priests in its formation, it was believed that Fr Osuagwu attempted to avoid the deteriorated Nekede road threatened by erosion, to enter Owerri town before heading to his destination. In the process, he was believed to have throttled his car pedals towards a local bush road from Nekede, to connect directly to Avu Junction end of Porthacourt road, through the relatively unknown bye-pass, to gain easy access into Obinze and Imopoly on Owerri-Portharcourt Road. There was no premonition before Fr Osuagwu that danger was lurking as he meandered through the bush route to Avu, outskirts of Owerri. Avu town is in Owerri West LGA of the state. As he cruised along which appeared not to be the first time he operated on the undeveloped bye-pass, no ominous signs that the ill-fated journey to either his place of work or the army chaplaincy would be his last. No sooner than he sped forward, death starred before him. How the massacred body of the cleric who taught Policy Matters in the Public Administration Department of Imo Poly was found on the road, by passersby, remains a puzzle, the state police commissioner and his homicide squad will unravel to ensure that they still earn their monthly income from the force to protect lives and property of the citizenry.
I cannot go further to tell the story how the priest from Obowo LGA of Imo State and described as a refined gentleman, meek and humble fellow met his untimely death, pending police report, since the spokesman of the Imo state command and my bossom friend, Andrew Enwerem, a DSP, has acknowledged report of the sad incident and assured that security operatives are working on the matter to find the killers.
Aside from the brutal murder of Fr Osuagwu, the Alvan Ikokwu Federal University of Education community were shocked to their bone marrows witnessing the inglorious manner a named student was butchered and shot to death near the campus in Owerri. Before the frightening ALVAN sad incident, a deja vu was witnessed at a popular night club also in Owerri when one of the able bodied gate keepers, known as bouncers, was murdered in cold blood. These sad developments have not also eclipsed pockets of unsavory spectre of assassinations, unwarranted gunshot attacks and escapades of social miscreants unleashing mayhem to defenceless residents of the state capital.
Delving more into the route the late Fr Osuagwu plied before he was hacked to death, I can confidently state that while road users in the state do not feel the impact of the newly introduced SAFER HIGHWAY TEAM of the Nigerian police, on major highways, local routes have turned into death traps, no thanks to the nefarious activities of the criminals on the roads.
I am particularly disturbed by the excesses of roadside hoodlums who create horrifying experience on the ever busy Owerri-Porthacourt road, especially, from the Avu Junction area to the dreaded Nkariaha Junction spots of Umuagwo-Umuapu end of the road. Around the place the slain priest was found in the pool of his blood, lies a terrible spot where gunmen make a mincemeat of motorists. Between October to the middle of this year, the road from Avu junction to Obinze town witnessed occasional robbery incidents, where armed men take over the express road at will, to dispose travellers their belongings. The nefarious acts of the hoodlums forced soldiers from the nearby Obinze barracks to begin patrol on the road. Their efforts were complemented by both uniformed and plain-clothed policemen who embarked on spot and search exercises at designated points on the road. Their presence somehow restored brief sanity that kept the adventurous highway robbers at bay. But whenever the security men are off the road for any reason, men of the underworld resurface in devastating form.
The irony is that most of the attacks take place at the blind sides of policemen who are within spitting distances to the scene of the incidents. Within the Avu junction area where Fr Nwagwu and others tasted a bitter pill of the rampaging criminals, there remains a special police checkpoint on both sides of the dual carriage road.
It might also interest the Commissioner of Police in the state to note that what happens at the Avu Junction area is a child’s play compared to the deadly attacks, motorists experience between Umuagwo and the boundary town of Umuapu, especially at the notorious Nkarahia junction spot. For regular road users and commercial drivers plying Owerri-Porthacourt road through the aforementioned route, the fear of the ubiquitous armed bandits tormenting motorists on the road, is the beginning of wisdom. Sad tales of horrifying experiences are abound concerning the menace created by the restless gunmen. There is hardly a day without a reported case of robbery incident at the Nkarahia junction. The neighbouring communities most times come to the rescue of victims disposed of their belongings. The record books of the Ohaji Divisional Police Headquarters, in Umuagwo, a stone throw to the hot spots , unarguably have been filled with reported incidents of the nefarious activities of highway robbers. Only recently, a driver of Peace Mass Transit was shot dead when the suspected robbers in their usual style blocked the road early morning of a Sunday in their bid to rob travelers. The commercial bus driver who took off from PortHacourt , Rivers State was killed at the dreaded spot before he could reach his Onitsha designation. The Peace Mass Transit case is one too many. There were also several other pathetic cases where the victims were either killed or kidnapped after suffering huge loses.
Applicable to the case of Avu junction, there are no less than five different police checkpoints from the Umuagwo end to Umuapu, yet gunmen make a mincemeat of the road users. The sorry state of the road which youths of Umuapu went on the street protest recently, also boost operations of the armed bandits who invade the bad spot of the highway from the bush paths.
The persistent raid of the gunmen on road users, despite the presence of police, raises concern among the locals who accuse security men of complicity. It was reported that in most cases, robbery attacks are recorded whenever the police team on checkpoints disperse to change guards or go for short-time break. More so, the policemen on duty on the said road are accused of turning more of their attention on tanker, trailer, heavy duty vehicles and other commercial drivers, than the dreaded bandits.
Until drastic measures and proactive solutions deployed by the police and accompanying security agencies like the army, to tackle the menace on the Owerri-PortHarcourt, more casualties will be recorded as the gunmen intensify their onslaught on innocent citizens
