The little boy was hawking boiled groundnuts, which was his daily routine. He strolled along, selling his groundnuts for peanuts to whoever wanted to buy.
When he got to Amakohia area of Owerri, his eyes lit up with joy when a customer beckoned on him to approach.
When he got to Amakohia area of Owerri, his eyes lit up with joy when a customer beckoned on him to approach.
That ‘customer’ was named Innocent Ekeanyanwu, aged 32.
The boy was called into the famous Otokoto Hotel and the little groundnut seller was visibly very excited since it was a hotel, it meant that the new ‘customer’ would probably be buying plenty groundnuts which will mean more money to take home to make his parents happy and assist his struggling family.
While waiting, the boy was treated like a guest, he was given a bottle of Coca-Cola to cool off from the punishing heat of tropical Africa.
Innocently, he took the Coke and gulped it with relish.
As he was sipping his soft drink and taking a look at the glittering surrounding of the hotel, he could have imagined having a hotel of his own too later in the future. As he was dreaming, his vision became blurry and the sounds around him became muzzled and dull.
In a matter of minutes, he dozed off, never to wake up again. His tray full of groundnuts was lying in a corner.
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 evilest 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.
After the boy’s head was cut off, he disembowelled his torso, removed his liver and other parts he needed. Not done yet, the boy’s genitals were not spared as well.
After butchering the boy, and sorting out the organs, he packed his head inside a polythene bag and buried his remains.
The Butcher, Ekeanyanwu then took the polythene bag containing the boy’s head and headed for the next destination: to the house of the man who needed the fresh head. The man who is behind it all.
HOW DID THE INFORMATION LEAK OUT:?
After the grisly murder of the little Okoronkwo by Mr Innocent Ekeanyanwu (what a name, innocent indeed), he left the hotel to deliver the head where it was needed.
He then Stopped a Bike man (Okada rider) to convey him to the place.
It was the Okada man named Opara, whom he stopped to take him to his destination in Eziama that realized that was his passenger was carrying inside a polythene bag was a fresh human head.
It was still dripping with blood. When he alighted,the Okada man quickly alerted the police. The Police then intercepted Ekeanyanwu on his way back in a Peugeot 504 car, he was carrying the head with him in the polythene bag.
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, there was a massive procession and protested by Owerri people.
People came out in 1000s to protest the boys ritual killing. They stayed around and within the hotel premises, waited for the police to confirm that it was indeed a ritual murder while more were matching and trooping to the scene of the Ritual Murder as the news was spreading.
The boy was called into the famous Otokoto Hotel and the little groundnut seller was visibly very excited since it was a hotel, it meant that the new ‘customer’ would probably be buying plenty groundnuts which will mean more money to take home to make his parents happy and assist his struggling family.
While waiting, the boy was treated like a guest, he was given a bottle of Coca-Cola to cool off from the punishing heat of tropical Africa.
Innocently, he took the Coke and gulped it with relish.
As he was sipping his soft drink and taking a look at the glittering surrounding of the hotel, he could have imagined having a hotel of his own too later in the future. As he was dreaming, his vision became blurry and the sounds around him became muzzled and dull.
In a matter of minutes, he dozed off, never to wake up again. His tray full of groundnuts was lying in a corner.
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 evilest 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.
After the boy’s head was cut off, he disembowelled his torso, removed his liver and other parts he needed. Not done yet, the boy’s genitals were not spared as well.
After butchering the boy, and sorting out the organs, he packed his head inside a polythene bag and buried his remains.
The Butcher, Ekeanyanwu then took the polythene bag containing the boy’s head and headed for the next destination: to the house of the man who needed the fresh head. The man who is behind it all.
HOW DID THE INFORMATION LEAK OUT:?
After the grisly murder of the little Okoronkwo by Mr Innocent Ekeanyanwu (what a name, innocent indeed), he left the hotel to deliver the head where it was needed.
He then Stopped a Bike man (Okada rider) to convey him to the place.
It was the Okada man named Opara, whom he stopped to take him to his destination in Eziama that realized that was his passenger was carrying inside a polythene bag was a fresh human head.
It was still dripping with blood. When he alighted,the Okada man quickly alerted the police. The Police then intercepted Ekeanyanwu on his way back in a Peugeot 504 car, he was carrying the head with him in the polythene bag.
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, there was a massive procession and protested by Owerri people.
People came out in 1000s to protest the boys ritual killing. They stayed around and within the hotel premises, waited for the police to confirm that it was indeed a ritual murder while more were matching and trooping to the scene of the Ritual Murder as the news was spreading.
It was in the 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 the first broadcast on September 24th.
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, every home in Owerri had heard the news or seen the image of Okoronkwo’s head or his shallow grave.
Unemployed and disgruntled youths took over the parks and issued threats to the Owerri millionaires.
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 privileged 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 destroyed.
(The Zubairu-led government later confiscated all the properties 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 air conditioners 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.
Ekeanyanwu, who murdered the boy, was aged 32 and he worked as a gardener inside the Otokoto Hotel.
Following the arrest of Ekeanyanwu, he was remanded in police custody while awaiting trial. But while he was in the police custody, magic happened!
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 the first broadcast on September 24th.
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, every home in Owerri had heard the news or seen the image of Okoronkwo’s head or his shallow grave.
Unemployed and disgruntled youths took over the parks and issued threats to the Owerri millionaires.
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 privileged 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 destroyed.
(The Zubairu-led government later confiscated all the properties 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 air conditioners 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.
Ekeanyanwu, who murdered the boy, was aged 32 and he worked as a gardener inside the Otokoto Hotel.
Following the arrest of Ekeanyanwu, he was remanded in police custody while awaiting trial. But while he was in the police custody, magic happened!
He was killed by food poisoning 4 days after.
He killed the boy on Thursday and by Sunday morning, he was found Dead. 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.
Reports have it that the Otokoto saga had been in place as far back as 1976.
Confessional statements revealed 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 exhumed at Otokoto Hotel was up to 24 bodies. Some were buried at inconspicuous locations such as under the flowerbeds.
He killed the boy on Thursday and by Sunday morning, he was found Dead. 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.
Reports have it that the Otokoto saga had been in place as far back as 1976.
Confessional statements revealed 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 exhumed at Otokoto Hotel was up to 24 bodies. 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 a business tycoon. And he was the younger brother to Laz Unaogu, a serving minister under Abacha.
Leonard Unaogu was eventually arrested by the police.
When the police arrested Unaogu, he lied with a straight face that he never knew anyone called Innocent Ekeanyanwu and that he was not even in Owerri when the crime was committed, he said he was in Lagos.
On 20th August 1997, a senior magistrate court in Owerri docked 9 police officers.
For the murder of Ekeanyanwu.
They were:
-Ifeanyi Anozie, an assistant commissioner of police
-Chukwu Obasi, an assistant superintendent of police
-Kevin Ezirim
-Christian Nnazi
-Clifford Odiaka
-Felix Nnorom
-Christopher Aguobi
-Ignatius Igwe
-James Ibezere
-Josephat Nwosu
The case snailed until 14th October 1997, over a year, and after series of adjournments, absence of lawyers, the Presiding judge, suspects or even the retirement of judges or their transfer etc.
When the case finally resumed, many were pissed off. Leonard Unaogu, the minister’s brother, was transported in a new station wagon from the prison to the court like a royalty. Vincent Duru and other suspects were brought in a Black Maria from prison to the court, with handcuffs.
Duru protested the preferential treatment given to Unaogu.
Many judges handled the case. First, it was Gabriel Ojiaku, then Simeon Ekpe who was almost done with the prosecution until he was elevated to Court of Appeal.
Then finally on 28th April 1999, Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme.
Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme Judgment:
She Sentenced All the seven suspects to death, they were:
Chief Vincent Duru. The owner of the Otokoto Hotel and Unaogu denied knowing each other, but Justice Nwosu-Iheme said that was a lie.
He appealed the sentence in 2012 but he was unlucky as the sentence was upheld by the Appeal Court
Leonard Unaogu: He would later die some years ago at the Port Harcourt Prisons in what has been described as very mysterious circumstances.
from Nigeriastories
The man that Ekeanyanwu mentioned before he was poisoned to death, Leonard Unaogu, was a business tycoon. And he was the younger brother to Laz Unaogu, a serving minister under Abacha.
Leonard Unaogu was eventually arrested by the police.
When the police arrested Unaogu, he lied with a straight face that he never knew anyone called Innocent Ekeanyanwu and that he was not even in Owerri when the crime was committed, he said he was in Lagos.
On 20th August 1997, a senior magistrate court in Owerri docked 9 police officers.
For the murder of Ekeanyanwu.
They were:
-Ifeanyi Anozie, an assistant commissioner of police
-Chukwu Obasi, an assistant superintendent of police
-Kevin Ezirim
-Christian Nnazi
-Clifford Odiaka
-Felix Nnorom
-Christopher Aguobi
-Ignatius Igwe
-James Ibezere
-Josephat Nwosu
The case snailed until 14th October 1997, over a year, and after series of adjournments, absence of lawyers, the Presiding judge, suspects or even the retirement of judges or their transfer etc.
When the case finally resumed, many were pissed off. Leonard Unaogu, the minister’s brother, was transported in a new station wagon from the prison to the court like a royalty. Vincent Duru and other suspects were brought in a Black Maria from prison to the court, with handcuffs.
Duru protested the preferential treatment given to Unaogu.
Many judges handled the case. First, it was Gabriel Ojiaku, then Simeon Ekpe who was almost done with the prosecution until he was elevated to Court of Appeal.
Then finally on 28th April 1999, Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme.
Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme Judgment:
She Sentenced All the seven suspects to death, they were:
Chief Vincent Duru. The owner of the Otokoto Hotel and Unaogu denied knowing each other, but Justice Nwosu-Iheme said that was a lie.
He appealed the sentence in 2012 but he was unlucky as the sentence was upheld by the Appeal Court
Leonard Unaogu: He would later die some years ago at the Port Harcourt Prisons in what has been described as very mysterious circumstances.
from Nigeriastories
Omo, it shook Nigeria
ReplyDeletesighs! Ritual story is real and its still happening in the government as of today.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who kills an innocent person for ritual will also die mysteriously.
Amen
DeleteAmen
DeleteAMEN
DeleteI sabi this story wella... Leonard Unaogu's son attended same primary school with me in Surulere. Infact we were in the same class. I was so naughty then, we quarreled normal pikin quarrel. I now called him ''Okotoko father''. The boy reported me to the headmaster. I was in Primary 3 then, Omo the headmaster flog shege comot for my body that day🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
ReplyDeleteOtokoto Saga!
ReplyDeleteNot just Duru, his son was involved too.
"Ogbu mma n' ana na mma"
Ikechukwu's head was strong...
That boy's death ended everything.
I remember this story as a child, but I didn't understand what was going on then. This article has helped me understand it better.
ReplyDeleteWho gave them that impression that human parts gives money that they are wasting life for nothing.
ReplyDeleteEasy way to get gullible humans with dead conscience that don't wanna stress for money.
Nothing??? If it wasn’t giving them money they wouldn’t be kidnapping and killing people like chicken oooo
Deletebut how do occultic men dat sleep with girls use dem
ReplyDeleteJamb question
Deletewell detailed story. thanks to the writer. i have been informed. and thanks to stella for posting
ReplyDeleteWow!!! Stella welldone! This is my first time of reading the full story of how it actually happened.
ReplyDeleteScary world 😥😥😥
ReplyDeleteMeaning ritual killings did not start today.they just ended that innocent boys life for nothing,thank God they got what they deserved which was death..
ReplyDeleteThis world is deep
ReplyDelete💔💔💔💔💔💔
I think it was a female judge that sentenced them to death or was it life imprisonment.
ReplyDeletedemonic men with evil minds
DeleteThank God that the poor boy spirit fought back.
ReplyDeleteThis story made us so scared
ReplyDeleteoh my goodness.
ReplyDeleteBut what as Charles O got to do with all this as BVs kept calling him Okotoko then.
ReplyDeleteI remember that story Wella.
ReplyDeleteEach time I listen to Eldee's song - big boy, I remember the otokoto story.
ReplyDeleteWhat a popular hotel at that time. Never forgot their advert - Otokoto hotel n'esi ezigbo nri.
ReplyDeleteThis incident shook Imo state at that time.
You're right about their advert @ Otokoto hotel n'esi ezigbo nri
DeleteThe court records show the boy was not drugged.
ReplyDeleteIt appears he was killed while fully conscious, and he fought for life as a stick with cloth tied to the end was reported to have been stuffed in his mouth to muffle him.
This even make it a more painful story, to know his little body fought for survival. Thank God through him the synducate was crumbled and many persons were erased from the Earth. His death was painful but it led to a revolution.
DeleteDo you know what happened to his family?
My son is 10 and I can't imagine. That's so depressing 😞
DeleteWow. This is a very sad story. What people do for money and lost their humanity. So sad
ReplyDeleteI will never forget this incident, witness the riot in lmo state that year. .. they beautiful palace of Eze onu egwu nwoke was beside our house at akwakuma then. .. .
ReplyDeleteIt was terrible.
😭😭😢😥
ReplyDeleteThis is heart broken chair😭😭😭
ReplyDeleteProud of the citizens of that place for fighting for justice
ReplyDelete