Posted by By Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka & Yetunde Oladeinde, Lagos on
Amid angry reactions trailing the murder of the former Commissioner for Women Affairs in Anambra State, Mrs. Uzo Obi-Okoli, those who knew her revealed on Wednesday that the suspected killer is the son she loved most.
Amid angry reactions trailing the murder of the former Commissioner for Women Affairs in Anambra State, Mrs. Uzo Obi-Okoli, those who knew her revealed on Wednesday that the suspected killer is the son she loved most.
Women and politicians were filled with rage as they condemned the killing on Wednesday, just as the police in Awka said they were awaiting the arrival of the suspected killer, who had been arrested in Lagos.
Another former commissioner for women affairs in the state, Chief Bridget Obi, told Daily Sun: "It is a pity that one of her children, whom she loved with passion could do such a dastardly act. It is a shame and I think this will bring us to the Bible doctrine of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.' If you are not used to saying no to chiildren, when you say no, it becomes a crime."
According to Mrs Obi, the death was a rude shock, especially for a woman that was a bundle of love. She said, "I felt shocked when I heard it on Monday evening and knowing that I had met with her three days earlier, speaking on politics of Anambra, on her pet project, the Tender Love Orphanage and the success of her petroleum pet project, Orient Petroleum Resources. I saw a bright future for her. I saw those beautiful children and the way she brought them up, I felt like taking one home.
"It is a great loss to the political advancement of women and the down trodden, who she had always represented through Mother Theresa Foundation. For those children, I don't know what to say, but I know that their mummy has gone and gone forever.
"For the late Mrs. Uzor Obi-Okoli, she has her own standards. She was a woman of creativity and whatever she does must be perfect or it is not done at all. People that knew her will miss her so much, she was a great mobilizer. Put her in anything, she will deliver, and she is a bundle of love," Mrs Obi said.
On what should be the punishment for the suspected killer she said, "that child is sick and needs more of treatment than confinement because I know that her children love he. This one must really be sick in the mind. And she loved him so much."
For Mrs. Chigozie Chukwuleta-Ozoemena, a journalist and mother of one, the story that Mrs. Obi-Okoli was allegedly killed by her son was like what happens in the movies.
She said, "The story came to me as a shock personally, because I knew the woman involved. As a journalist, in this state, I served when she was commissioner two times before she started getting other appointments. Very kind hearted woman and when you look at her, you look at her as a model of motherhood, then for her to breed a child that will turn out to kill her was a shocking and sad story.
"I felt bad because, for a woman, what you dream of in life is for a child that will grow, take care of you, pamper you and make you look like a queen. Some of us go through situations that are not mentionable to have our kids trained. But for you to bear one that will come up and get you killed is a strange story."
On what should be the young man's punishment, she said, "For me I want him to be set free so that he will leave with the agony of the knowledge of the fact that he killed his mother. I don't want him dumped inside a cell, I don't want him killed. I want him to live all the days of his life, and be perpetually reminded of his foolishness, his wickedness, his folly and cowardice to kill his mother. Let him live with it, let nobody kill him, let nobody torment him, let him walk the streets of this world with the pains and stigma of having killed the woman that brought him forth".
Another woman, a staff of the Government House, and a mother of six, Mrs. Victoria Aziagba described the incident as abomination and a calamity that has hit the family and the state.
She described the deceased as a good and kind hearted woman who shares love to all and lamented that the child who should have been a source of joy to the mother turned out to torment the life of the mother.
She said, "we are very, very shocked over this incident. After the sufferings of a mother, carrying a baby for nine months and training the child only to be killed by the same child. she bore, annoyed we women. We have not seen this kind of thing since we have been getting pregnant and bearing children.
"It used to be painful when a child speaks rudely to the mother, how much more a child shooting his mother, it is an abomination in Igbo land."
Another sympathiser, Mrs. Queen Igiri said the boy could have been under spiritual manipulation. "He didn't commit the actrocity with his clear eyes, maybe somebody in the family of the deceased or inlaw or office might have used the boy. He might be under the spiritual influence from abroad."