Like a horror movie, the village head of Nsie community in Okobo local government area of Akwa Ibom State, Chief Effiong Henry Etimene was gruesomely murdered by hoodlums suspected to be cultists.
The son of the deceased monarch, Prince Emmanuel Henry narrated amid tears how his father was shot, his corpse set ablaze and later beheaded.
The Akwa Ibom State Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal has already declared 14 persons wanted while 15 suspects arrested in connection with the murder are cooling their heels in the state police command.
Prince Henry told reporters in Uyo that a Councillor in Okobo LGA masterminded his father’s death over issues surrounding the forthcoming local government elections in the state.
He said the suspected cultists believed to have been engaged by the Councillor after a confrontation with the police, which led to the death of one of them descended on the village head with an axe, blocks and other dangerous weapons, and later carried the unconscious body into a GP tank, packed some of the village council chairs into it, poured petrol and set the man ablaze.
Establishing a link between the murder of his father and the ongoing Local government politics in the area, Prince Henry said the said Councilor (now at large) had earlier approached his father to negotiate a possibility of returning as councilor.
“The Nsie group of villages had met and came up with a list, but the Councillor and a few older men who are loyal to him decided to come up with their own list and threatened the village head to work with that or be ready to face the consequences. But the village head insisted that the collective interests of the people must be accommodated.”
He appealed to the Akwa Ibom State government to intervene and fish out the culprits and to help the family recover the head of the Monarch for burial.
