Monday Obinnah, would relish the 15th of June, 2013 for the
rest of his life. The day his saviour appeared on the scene while he had a
close shave with death. 3 months down the line, he is still battling with the
pains of an acid bath allegedly inflicted on him by a professional colleague
and some hoodlums.
Obinnah, presently hospitalised and in pains narrated his
ordeal to Saturday Vanguard, amid sympathizers who thronged daily to console
him.
Read his story after the jump
“I am a marketing
officer and North Central supervisor of ‘Ahaa Media’ and we specialize in
outdoor advertising which include the mounting of billboards across the
country.
”On that fateful day, I travelled to Makurdi to supervise
and monitor our billboards in the town, but to my chagrin, I saw that one of
our authorised billboards located on Otukpo road, close to Sev-Av Foundation
Headquaters had Hero larger beer illegally advertised on it without due
authorization.
“I made enquiries as to who posted the advertorial to no
avail. I had no option but to climb the board in an attempt to remove the
advertised image.
“While I was doing that, one Chidiebere Okugo who claimed he
is the sales representative of the firm whose product was advertised on the
board, mobilized hoodlums who assisted him to attack me while I was still
hanging on the billboard.
“They used dangerous weapons including sticks, stones and what
I later realised was a chemical to force me down, but I refused because the way
they confronted me, I was afraid for my life.
“And in their desperation to get me down from the billboard,
they struck and cut down one of the electric power lines that was close to the
billboard which fell on me and almost electrocuted me.
“At that point, I fell down and they descended on me, but I
was lucky to have been rescued by a team of Police men from the command
headquaters. It was at the police station that I noticed that parts of my body
were peeling off.”
He said after making his statement at the station, he was
granted bail and rushed to a hospital in Makurdi for first aid treatment and
afterwards transferred to the National Hospital Abuja and later to the University
of Abuja Teaching Hospital where he underwent plastic surgery and is currently
battling with pains and life threatening burns on parts of his body.
In the meantime, information gathered from the First
Information Report, FIR, filed at the Police station by the lead accused,
Chidiebere Okugo, the sales representative of the firm whose product was illegally
advertised on the billboard revealed that he had claimed that the advert
billboard belonged to his company.
He also claimed that he noticed the burns on the victim’s
body only when he was taken to the Police station. “It was at the Police
station that I noticed injury on the man’s body.
“I noticed that his leg and other parts of his body were
peeling off and I do not know how to describe it.
“As a sales representative of my company covering Makurdi
only, my work does not cover billboards but to my knowledge, the billboard in
question is our company’s billboard.
“The branding department of our company told me that they
are the people who mounted the billboard. I will be surprised to know that my
company does not own the billboard in question.
“I am not aware that the billboard is being claimed by
another company. Though I was aware that the victim was rushed to the National
Hospital Abuja, I did not order anybody to beat him up”, Okugo said.
Meanwhile, a Makurdi based legal practitioner, Terfa Akosu
has taken up the matter in pursuit of justice for the victim, stating that “the treatment meted out to the victim was
dastardly, brutal and beyond comprehension.
“That the young man is still alive today is just by the
share grace of God and we strongly believe that justice would be done in the
matter to serve as deterrent to others ,” Akosu said.
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