By Johnson Ebigide
The Delta State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, and the Police commands in Delta and Edo states to unravel the mystery surrounding the murder of a rising politician, Elliot Ofa, in Delta State.
The union made the call through the state council Chairman, Comrade Michael Ikeogwu, when he led members of his exco and some journalists in the state to pay a condolence visit to Dr Henry Ofa, the elder brother of the murdered politician, in his country home at Oghara in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State.
Comrade Ikeogwu said that the news of the brutal murder of Elliot came as a rude shock to not only the union, but the people of Oghara, Deltans and Nigerians who knew the murdered young politician as a political gentleman, adding that Elliot’s murder had further escalated the unfortunate belief that no one is safe in the country.
The union leader urged the IGP and the two commands of Police in Delta and Edo States, the axis he was murdered, to step up investigations towards bringing the perpetrators of the heinous act to book, not only to serve as a deterrent to those itching to repeat such a dastardly crime in the state and beyond, but to make life safe and ensure that the family of Elliot got justice for unjustifiably murdering him.
Comrade Ikeogwu urged Dr Ofa to be strong in spirit so as to be able to weather the psychological torment of losing his brother to those who had murdered him, saying that those Elliot suddenly left behind needed his fatherly support to surmount the unfortunate situation.
He prayed God to give the Ofa Family, the people of Oghara, Deltans, and indeed men of goodwill in the state and beyond, the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.
Responding, Dr Ofa thanked Comrade Ikeogwu for the visit, saying that the kind words from the union had greatly consoled him.
The PDP chieftain in the state decried the situation that led to the murder of his brother, saying that it appeared that he was led into a carefully planned trap before he was murder, even when he maintained that his family was not suspecting anybody in the killing of Elliot.
He called on the Nigerian Police, particularly the Edo and Delta states commands, to fish out the killers of his brother for the world to know the offence for which he deserved to be murdered, adding that journalists in the state should do the needful by following the issue in their write-ups until justice was done, just as he wondered why his brother was singled out and shot dead in the company of his friends on their way to Asaba, the state capital.
Elliot Ofa, who was aspiring to be a ward councillor in Oghara, was gruesomely murdered at Obel, a boundary village between Edo and Delta states along Jesse Road, on January 11, 2021, on his way for party clearance the next day in Asaba.
