Posted by By TONY OSAUZO, Benin on
Father of the late Edo State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Chief Richard Enoma (JP), had a premonition that something would happen to his son, Mr. Calus, before he was found dead in a hotel room in Benin on Monday.
Father of the late Edo State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Chief Richard Enoma (JP), had a premonition that something would happen to his son, Mr. Calus, before he was found dead in a hotel room in Benin on Monday.
Speaking with journalists at his No.16, Enoma Street home, off Okhoro Road, Benin City on Tuesday, Pa Enoma said: 'I got some signs that something may happen to any of my children."
He revealed that before the incident, some of his children had dreamt about it, particularly his son abroad.
'My child abroad dreamt that they planned to kill him and that there was a lady among them," Pa Enoma disclosed, adding that after the revelation, the family members started praying about it.
Chief Enoma, 70, said the first suspect in the murder of his son was a former top civil servant, who, he alleged, threatened to kill his son for daring to remove him from office.
He urged the police and the state government not to trivialize the death of his son, as what happened to him could happen to anybody.
Chief Enoma, who described his late son as the 'bread winner" of the family, said he saw him last Thursday morning, only to hear, on Saturday, that he had been kidnapped.
'I heard it was a lady who phoned to deceive him. I would like government to take action to discover the lady," Chief Enoma said and pleaded that the person who booked the room should be fished out.
Contrary to insinuations that the late commissioner may have gone to the hotel with a woman, Chief Enoma said Calus, his first son, was not a womanizer. He wondered why any of the late commissioner's security guards did not follow him, saying that he was deceived not to go along with any of them.
Enoma disclosed that officials of the Edo State government were yet to visit him since the death of his son was announced.
'I want to see the governor to know that he sympathized with me," he demanded.
Also speaking, an uncle of the late commissioner, Mr. Sam Enoma, a lawyer, said the death of Calus was 'a conspiracy and an organized crime."
He wondered why the commissioner's car was parked at the Precious Palm Royal Hotel for four days without anyone asking questions and therefore demanded that the hotel management be thoroughly investigated.
Speaking to journalists in his grandfather's house, amid sobs, the only child of the late commissioner, 13-year-old Jennifer Enoma, a JSS 2 student of Nosakhare Model Education Centre, Benin, asked government to get the killers of her father, adding: 'I feel bad about the death of my father."
At the home of the late commissioner at Enoma Close, some metres away from the hotel where he died, his wife, Julie, was all tears, as the wife of Edo State Deputy Governor, Mrs. Lynda Imasuen, tried to console her.
'Can't they look for those who killed my husband? Government should help me look for those who killed Calus. He was called out of his house. Calus cannot come back again," she said.
Meanwhile, Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 5, Benin, Mr. Udom Ekpoudom, has said that it was too early to make public details of investigation into the death of the former commissioner.
Answering questions from journalists shortly after he commenced familiarization tour of the Edo State Police Command on Tuesday, the AIG said it was not a difficult task to solve the riddle surrounding the death of the former commissioner.
The police, he said, would try to establish whether Enoma was killed by somebody and get anyone involved arrested, adding that if he was not killed by anybody, the police would say so.
'We would do a professional job," Mr. Ekpoudum promised.
Earlier, while addressing senior police officers of the Edo Police Command in the office of the State Commissioner of Police, the AIG commended the command for its effort in fighting crime and urged officers as well as rank and file to continue the good work.