Otokoto - Remembering A Saga That Shook Nigeria.

Armed robbers may terrorize and cart away their loot, but when it comes down to ritual activities, it never augurs well with the Nigerian populace. 

A typical example is the Otokoto saga that shook Nigeria to the knees. It all happened in the usually calm and serene city of Owerri, capital of the country’s southeastern state of Imo, during the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha.

 An 11- year-old boy named Anthony Ikechukwu Okoronkwo was meandering his way through the streets of the city with his tray of boiled groundnut. When he got to Amakohia area of Owerri, the boy was called into the famous Otokoto Hotel by a man who wanted to buy groundnut. That man’s name would later be known as a 32-year old Innocent Ekeanyanwu.

Once inside the hotel, the boy was told to wait and even given a Coca-Cola drink to sooth his nerves from the harsh sun. Moments later his vision became blurry and he dozed off, never to wake up again.his tray full of groundnuts was lying in a corner.

Meanwhile observing the boy from a safe distance was the man who had called him to buy his groundnuts. 

He had spiked the boy’s drink and once he saw he was asleep, he took the limp body of the drugged lad into one of the hotel rooms and what followed next remains one of the most evil things anyone can ever dream up.

 A sharp cutlass emerged from nowhere and the boy’s head was severed from his body. He was beheaded in a matter of minutes.

 Passersby outside the hotel had absolutely no idea of what was going on inside the ‘high- brow’ hotel. After the boy’s head was cut off, they proceeded to disembowel his torso and removed his liver and other parts they needed. They were not done yet, his genitals were not spared as well. After he was done butchering the boy, he sorted out the organs, packed his head inside a polythene bag and they made a shallow grave where they hurriedly buried his mangled remains.

 Ekeanyanwu then took the polythene bag containing the head and headed for the next destination: to the house of the man who needed the fresh head.

THE OTOKOTO HOTEL

Otokoto Hotel was located in an upscale area of Owerri, specifically the Amakohia side, and it was a hot spot for the rich and wealthy to meet, mingle and have fun.

The hotel was made up of three buildings, (three, five and six stories each, one behind the other). It was owned by Chief Vincent Duru, the father of Obidiozor Duru, the alleged leader of the Black Scorpions secret cult responsible for a spate of robberies and kidnapping of children in the state. Almost all residents in Owerri placed the Durus under their radar and surveillance, with rumours all over the place about their nefarious activities.

BACKGROUND TO THE STORY

Even before the horrible incident that broke the camel’s back took place, the people of Owerri were already very mad at the bizarre actions of some loud, extremely powerful and obscenely wealthy individuals in the state. These people were highly-connected and oppressed everyone where they went.

 Rumours were all over the place as to their very dark dealings and even the possibility of ritual murders and killings but no one really had any hard evidence yet or probably those who had it were too jittery to say anything. 

These rich people who had no really tangible or easily traceable sources of wealth kept on living large and instilling an atmosphere of terror and fear on the Owerri populace. When the people heard of what happened inside the hotel to the boy, Owerri exploded with anger and resentment that had been piling up for years. 

For two straight days, the people of Owerri trooped out in their thousands, protesting and rioting. Not even the strong-arm tactics of the Imo State military administrator, Colonel Tanko Zubair, could stop them (the administration of the former military governor Navy Captain James Aneke was already seen as corrupt, 419-based and even complicit in the protection of the Otokoto men while he was in office). 

They simply ran amok and the national and international media focused on the Owerri riots of 24th and 25th of September, 1996, also known as the Otokoto riots....

 the people felt they had had more than enough. 

Any property suspected to belong to the ’Otokoto men’ were set ablaze, from posh hotels to luxury supermarkets, their flashy automobiles, palatial mansions, everything was destroyed and burnt to the ground. Any suspected member of the Otokoto gang was lynched. Prior to the riots, the youthful members of the Otokoto gang and other secret societies (believed to be offshoots of campus secret cults) involved in ritual killings went everywhere oppressing others with their ill- gotten wealth making other hardworking youths look clueless and silly. 

 It was for them, apparently, an opportunity for a putsch, for a cleansing of their once peaceful town. And they went about it with maddening fury. They pointed out magnificent buildings within the city suspected to belong to fraudsters and kidnappers. And once fingered, such buildings were marched upon and torched with exotic cars and other properties destroyed, and their owners pronounced guilty by the mob.

 As the crowd moved from one part of the town to another, more people joined in the act of fury and more victims fell to its jungle justice. ’ The Owerri public had no faith in the police and as a matter of fact, the commissioner of police at that time, David Abure, was seen as the personification of corruption who wined and dined with the evil ones. But how did the news of the brutal hotel killings leak out to the public?

THE SHOCKING DISCOVERY

After the grisly murder of the little Okoronkwo by Mr. Innocent Ekeanyanwu, he left the hotel to deliver the head where it was needed. It was the motorcycle operator named Opara who took him to his destination in Eziama who realized that what his passenger was carrying inside the polythene bag was actually a fresh human head. 

It was still dripping with blood. When he alighted, the motorcyclist alerted the police who then intercepted Ekeanyanwu on his way back in a Peugeot 504 car, he was carrying the head with him in the polythene bag. Opara would later testify in court. 

With the motorcycle he took earlier, he was going to the residence of a highly-influential figure named Chief Leonard Unaogu at Eziama, Ikeduru Local Council Area with the head but upon arriving, he was told Mr. Unaogu had gone to Lagos. So Ekeanyanwu had no other option but to return to Owerri with the boy’s head. 

 When it was time to take the headless body of Ikechukwu to the local mortuary, Owerri residents trooped out of their homes, it was a massive procession and they protested all the way. 

They stayed around and within the hotel premises and waited for the police to confirm that it was indeed a ritual murder. 

Some other Owerri residents kept watch in front of the medical center, watching everything and also waiting for the confirmation of a ritual murder from either the morgue or the police. But the notice was to eventually come from the Imo State television station.

It was in this midst of this tension that the local media station made its miscalculation. They showed the image of Innocent Ekeanyanwu holding the head of his victim. The goal of the media was to assure the people, assuage public fear, ask the public to help identify the boy and show official transparency but what followed next was a catastrophe. 

All hell broke loose as the enraged people of Owerri went haywire after the image was first broadcast on the 24th of September. 

All Owerri residents abandoned their businesses and congregated at the town’s central marketplace. It was there they decided on the next plan of action and outlined their strategies to deal with the Otokoto ‘headhunters’. 

The news spread rapidly and before long, every home in Owerri had either of the news or seen the image of Okoronkwo’s head or his shallow grave. From the Owerri main market, the riots exploded and spread.

The pattern of destruction was neat. The rampaging crowd first went to the morgue and from there, they rushed to the Otokoto Hotel and burnt it to the ground. From there, they went to the nearby palatial mansion of Chief Vincent Duru and destroyed his property, his expensive cars were wrecked and Duru himself narrowly escaped.

 From there, the crowd split into attack groups and spread out to other sites of the priviledged elite and unleashed maximum destruction. The well- known Piano Plaza and Stores, alongside another hotel, Chibet Hotel, and various businesses linked to the Otokoto and their associates were utterly destroyed. The Zubairu-led government later confiscated all the property as recommended by the panel which was headed by Justice PC Onumajuru.

From there, they rushed to the palace of the traditional ruler and chairman of the state council of traditional rulers, Eze Onu Egwu Nwoke (later indicted alongside Aneke and Abure by the panel of inquiry) and burnt down his residence and his petrol station, they also destroyed the king’s 15 airconditioners and many of his cars. 

They were not done yet, from there, the crowd ‘troops’ headed for the residences of former Imo State officials. These administrators were targeted because of what was described as “their alleged unwillingness to properly tackle several cases of ritual murder, kidnapping and robbery while in office”. The angry rioters only agreed to calm down when the military administrator (MILAD) assured them that a full, state-level investigation of the incident was going to be launched.

THE INVESTIGATIONS

Following the arrest of Ekeanyanwu, he was remanded in police custody while awaiting trial. But while he was in the police custody, magic happened as usual, he was killed by food poisoning. 

He killed the boy on Thursday and by Sunday morning, the 22nd of September, he was found dead in police custody and by Monday morning, the news of his death was already spreading throughout Owerri. But luckily for the interrogators, before he was killed, Ekeanyanwu confessed and mentioned Leonard Unaogu as the brain behind the ritual killing syndicate.

 He confessed that the ritual killing ring was a well-organized machine that specialized in the harvesting of human body parts and sold them to those interested in using them for rituals and all the usual nonsense they claimed to be using them for. He also said it was Unaogu who ordered him to get a human head.

 Some reports indicate that the Otokoto saga (as the ritual killing came to be known) had been in place as far back as 1976. Confessional statements also show that no one was spared at the Otokoto Hotel. Innocent guests and unsuspecting travellers who lodged at the hotel were drugged or attacked in the middle of their sleep and hacked to death after which they were cut into pieces for sale. 

Police officers who swooped upon the hotel discovered not only the shallow grave containing that of the little boy but also graves containing other victims with their decomposing and dismembered corpses. No one knows the exact number of bodies exhumed at Otokoto Hotel, with figures varying from 8 to two dozen. Some were buried at inconspicuous locations such as under the flowerbeds. Such evil, such horror!

 The man that Ekeanyanwu mentioned before he was poisoned to death, Leonard Unaogu, was known in the society as a business tycoon. Everyone knew him. But that was not all. His younger brother, Laz Unaogu, was a serving minister.

Arm Of Law

On judgement day, it took the presence of a special squad of combat-ready police men to keep the huge crowd that gathered within the premises of the Owerri High Court, in check. 

The atmosphere was charged. Justice Nwosu-Iheme’s judgment lasted for about three and half hours and was summed up this way: “The soul that sinneth shall die,” as she sentenced the seven men to death by hanging. 

The judge explained that the weight of evidence was heavily against all the accused. “This is a typical case when a circumstantial evidence has proved a case of murder with the accuracy surpassing that of mathematics. It has left no one in doubt, of the connection between one accused person and others. It is to me a syndicated arrangement with clear division of labour,” she said.

 Singling out Unaogu, she said: “the sixth accused person, Leonard Unaogu could be described as essential part of the actor who orders for the heads of human beings as if he is ordering for goat heads. It is indeed an unfortunate case, a very intelligent man who chose to channel his intelligence the wrong way.

The blood of Ikechukwu Okonkwo must be a very strong and powerful one that cried to God in high heavens.”“It is indeed condemnable, even God Himself condemned it when he said in Ezekiel chapter 8 verse 20 that “the soul that sinneth shall die.” 

The accused have demonstrated specie of wickedness surpassing those of Jezebel. The law is very clear on the consequences of these acts and the perpetrators will go in for it,” the judge proclaimed.

Nwosu-Iheme said the prosecution had proved the case against all the seven accused persons and therefore found each of them guilty. The state counsel and defence lawyers concluded their addresses in October last year. The prosecuting counsel maintained that all the accused persons were principal offenders and should be convicted of murder as charged while defence lawyers especially J. C. Uwazuruonye for Vincent Duru and Amadi Obi for Leonard Unaogu, prayed the court to free their respective clients.

Unaogu hurriedly told newsmen following the death sentence passed on him: “I am dying because I helped the less-privileged and widows in the society.” Then Duru said: “This is not a thorough judgment,” As for Anyanwu, “History will see the judgment as it is.” The death sentences ended the Otokoto saga.

 Relations of the condemned men burst into tears. But some other persons were happy. Unaogu’s two wives wept uncontrollably while Rufus Anyanwu’s wife fainted and was carried out of the scene by sympathisers. 

Uche Durueke, chairman of the South- East branch of the Civil Liberties Organisation, CLO, which monitored the court proceedings said: “the course of the law might be slow. The day of judgment cometh. Today it has come.”

from insightoncrime.com