On 19th September 1996, during the regime of late General Sani Abacha’s, in the city of Owerri – Imo State, an innocent 11-year-old boy named Anthony Ikechukwu Okoronkwo was murdered for Ritual purposes.
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 come. 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.
Ekeanyanwu welcomed the boy warmly, offering him a bottle of Coca-Cola to cool off. It seemed like an act of kindness, but it was laced with poison. As Anthony sipped the drink, his vision blurred, and his small body grew weak. In a few minutes, he lost consciousness—never to wake up again.
What followed was a horror beyond words. Ekeanyanwu, a mere gardener at the hotel, carried Anthony’s limp body into a room. With chilling precision, he took a cutlass and beheaded the unconscious child. His body was dismembered—his liver, genitals, and other organs harvested. After butchering the boy, and sorting out the organs, he packed his head inside a polythene bag and buried his remains in a shallow grave on the hotel premises.
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 THE INFORMATION LEAK OUT
After the grisly murder of the little Okoronkwo by Mr Innocent Ekeanyanwu, 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 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, 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 utterly 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.
Story culled from Imo Times Newspaper, 1996 edition
