Gunmen, in Imo State, have assassinated the Deputy Registrar of Federal Polytechnic, Uwana, Ebonyi State, Innocent Obi, throwing the community into panic.
Obi was reportedly killed in the Ezeala/Ezike autonomous community in Umuezeala, Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of the state by gunmen operating under the guise of Biafra agitators, Vanguard reports.
The deceased, popularly known by villagers as Onye Army, was said to have retired from the military before joining the services of the Federal Polytechnic Uwana.
He was said to have also applied to be the next substantive registrar of the institution before his untimely death.
According to the villagers, he travelled home to his Umuoboama village for the burial of a relative killed in the Northeast (a soldier) who was abducted and killed.
Sources claimed that no sooner had Obi retired to his family house in the village after the funeral weekend, than over six hoodlums invaded his home around 10 p.m.
The assailants were said to have operated in military and police uniforms.
One of the sources said: “They broke through the main door and started using machetes and axes on him. His cry for help attracted villagers to the scene, but the boys who were operating on three motorcycles, started shooting consistently into the air. The shooting forced everybody who had come out for his rescue back. And they abducted Dee Onye Army from that Friday night, leaving heavy blood stains in the house.
“The villagers summoned a search party for him the following day on Saturday. It was late Sunday afternoon that we got information about a decomposing corpse lying between Ehime Mbano and Ahiazu Mbaise.
“When our people visited the scene that Sunday, it was the dead body of our brother, Dee Onye Army, that we met. They gruesomely butchered him beyond recognition.
“Dee Onye Army was a man who ensured that any youth who wanted to go to school got admission. So many youths were given admission to his school. He never lived like a rich man, always unassuming. It was now that he started building his house in the village, and that building was just within the decking stage before his death.”
