Business may no longer be as usual between Cross River and Imo State following dissatisfaction on investigation into the killing of its citizen, Hope Frampton Akpanika who was brutally murdered in June, early this year while on National Youth Service (NYSC) in Aboh Mbaise, Imo.
The late corps member, who was mobilised for the 2014 Batch ‘C’ and expected to conclude his service by October next month, was posted to Christ the Saviour Secondary School, Ezuhu Umuhu Okwuato autonomous community in Aboh Mbaise Council of Imo State for his primary assignment, where unknown assailants scaffold him with his hands and legs tied to a stake and stabbed three times on the chest.
While the body of Frampton is still in the morgue, three months after his killing, the police inquiring into the murder seem to have gone mild on fishing out the perpetrators and bringing them to book as not much has been heard from them.
Outgone Imo State NYSC Coordinator, Mr. Abada Okpiroro, before his posting to Abuja, had told our reporter that the police were not carrying NYSC along on the investigation, despite the scheme being the supposed primary custodian of the late corps member, in that he died while on service.
June 17, 2015 Imo lawmakers passed a motion to send a condolence letter to the Cross River government over the assassination of the Corps member who hails from Calabar Municipal Council of Cross River, but the state through its spokesman, Mr. Christian Ita denies being aware of any of such attempts by the Imo State to console with them for the lost adding that the state is yet to be fully briefed either by NYSC or its Imo counterpart on the issue.
On a telephone conversation with our reporter the Cross River Government Spokesman said, “As I speak, the state security adviser is not aware of that story, it’s all assumed”
On his part, the Security Adviser to Cross River Government, Mr. Jude Ngaji, who had one time also served in Imo during his NYSC days, said Cross River was peeved and unsatisfied about how the matter was being treated with levity and so will on this Tuesday cause its Imo State counterpart to wake up the task of fishing out those who carried out the dastardly act on the state’s citizen.
Expressing his dissatisfaction on the matter, the Security Adviser said, “We would never allow that to happen; as I speak with you by Monday, latest Tuesday there will be a letter from my office to the Imo State Government.”
“I will write a mail to the Imo State Government and I will call whoever is the state security adviser there; and the wording that you will get from me will be very strong, you can get that from us, no citizen of Cross River can be murdered in that manner and the entire state keeps silence about it.”
When contacted, the distraught mother of the deceased corps member, whose name was only given as Mma Akpanika (literarily meaning ‘mother of Akpanika’), who initially did not want to speak to the press because it relived memories of her son’s shocking dead, accused NYSC, the Imo State and Cross River Government of share abandonment and complacency claiming the issue was only handled with its kind of currency because her late son did not have any one to pursue the case on his behalf.
Inquiring into the police has put, Mma Akpanika asked, “Have they finished their investigation? I needed to know the person and the person has to tell me the problem, what actually went in between them,” the single mother inquired.
“You cannot just slaughter even fowl, (let alone) somebody’s child, would you slaughter and free?”
“if the child was their own would they have done him like that?”
“But not for God I would have gone diabolical, then you would see what is going to happen,” she threatened.
As at press time, the spokesperson to the Imo State Government, Mr. Sam Onwuemeodo could not be reached as he was said to be in Turkey for a retreat.
The Imo State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Andrew Enwerem (DSP), when contacted on telephone said he could not talk on the matter as he was driving and promised to communicate with our correspondent in 30Minutes, but when attempts were later made to contact him again on phone he refused taking his calls and later his number could not be reached.
But for his murder, late Frantom, who hails from Cross River and holds a Bsc in Physics at the Cross River University of Technology (CRUTECH), would have concluded his service year alongside his peers by October 8, next month.
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