On the 25 of July 2019, this journalist contacted Yushau Shuaib; a former media contractor to the office of the National Security Adviser to the president of Nigeria over his publication concerning the circumstance surrounding the death of an Army Captain, Ikechukwu Ohakwe and also another conflicting story of one Colonel Eze Elemele who was alleged to be among the victims of Bokoharam ambush a week ago.
Yushau Shuaib, a journalist at Prng.com, during the time of Jonathan worked closely with the then National Security Adviser to the president, Sambo Dasuki. He toured around the North East with the military and gave authentic reports about the success the government of Jonathan recorded in the war against Bokoharam. He is also the author of a popular book, “My Encounter With The Spymaster” which was written in honour of Sambo Dasuki who is presently languishing in the government detention facility despite several court injunctions pressing for his release. He has won several awards because of his penchant for objective reportage across the board.
During my conversation with Yushau Shuaib, I posed an important question to him. I asked him if Colonel Eze Elemele and Captain Ikechukwu Ohakwe were different people? He outrightly said that prng.com responded based on the trending news. According to him, when the misleading story of Captain Ohakwe went viral on the social media, Prng.com acted immediately to set the record straight. Prng.com was the first media organization to refute the story that Ohakwe Ikechukwu was killed during Bokoharam ambush. The media consulting firm maintained that Ohakwe died in a car crash while returning from a special military course he attended with two other colleagues.
When this investigator further presented the twit attached to this report to Yushau Shuaib, he responded by saying, “fake news”. “It’s not true”.
However, a week ago, the social media was agog when the pictures of Captain Ohakwe Ikechukwu and his lovely family surfaced online after he was reported to be among the victims of Bokoharam onslaught on the 18th of July 2019. But one convoluted side of the whole saga is that after this investigator spent hours analysing more than 10 updates from reputable media outlets and public figures, he realised that most of these medias and public figures ignorantly used Captain Ohakwe’s picture in place of Colonel Eze Elemele whose picture and military registration number is not known as at the time of this investigation. Moreover, these conflicting stories have rather put a big question mark to the entire saga of Captain Ohakwe and Colonel Eze Elemele.
Prng.com is still maintaining their initial report which said that Captain Ohakwe who is an indigene of Imo State died in a car crash while returning from a military course and not by Bokoharam ambush.
Ikechukwu, and two other officers, were involved in a ghastly road accident along Makurdi-Lafiya Road at Yelwata, a border town between Benue and Nasarawa States. The officers were returning to their base after completing Cadre Conversion course at the 20 Model Battalion of the Nigeria Army in Serti, Taraba State prng.com reports.
Prng.com further stated in their report that a Honda Accord car, which the Army officers including Captain Ikechukwu were in, had a head-on collision with a vehicle in the opposite direction. The fatal crash instantly claimed Ikechukwu’s life while Captain NA Shehu (NA14972) and Captain JE Akwaraonwu (NA15039) survived the fatal crash.
Kalu Nwokoro Idika is a political analyst, Investigative and freelance journalist.
E-mail: Kalunwokoroidika@yahoo.com