… police say suspects on the run

•Ashibogwu: My story

•Family of deceased official contradicts claims

By Egufe Yafugborhi & Ochuko Akuopha

The deeply concerning photos of the deceased leading to his tragic passing are difficult to reconcile with the official calm that followed.

In one of them, seated on a hospital chair, 54-year-old Unity Ekwevugbe Adeda, Deputy Director in Delta State Ministry of Secondary Education, had a face visibly swollen around both eyes.

Bruises and apparent injuries mark his face and mouth, his right arm supported in a sling.

It is the haunting image now attached to a rapidly widening controversy in Delta’s corridors of power – one that has moved from an alleged confrontation inside a government office to a death, police investigation, workers’ shutdown and an administrative panel.

Adeda died after the incident at the office of the Commissioner for Secondary Education, Dr Kingsley Ashibogwu, in Asaba.

The police have arrested one suspect and launched manhunt for two others named in allegations concerning the assault. 

The Command said its homicide section would examine video footage, eyewitness accounts, medical records and the actions of everyone connected with the incident. 

But before the official investigation can establish what happened, two dramatically different accounts have emerged.

Ashibogwu denied ordering any assault. “Oh, I didn’t. Rather, the man even assaulted me, assaulted people in the office”, he claimed, talking with Sunday Vanguard.

He alleged Adeda had earlier used his vehicle in a threatening manner and that he was summoned after the incident.

According to the commissioner, “I just came out from the church, and they drew my attention that the man came and was threatening their lives, to kill them. 

“As we were talking, see the man walking down, shouting from the gate, ‘I will kill you today!’ Before I knew what was happening, it was attack on me, physical. Direct attack. My clothes are there.”

He further denied sending his aides to beat the deceased, saying: “I never ordered any person to touch him, I never touched him.”

The commissioner further said police officers who arrived at the scene initially regarded the situation as a medical rather than criminal matter. “Police left. And his brother now took him to the hospital where they treated him and discharged him. Then later again at night, his body started becoming somehow, and before I got information this morning that he’s late”, he claimed.

Family alleges false narrative

But Adeda’s sister, Ovwigho, gave a radically different account of what she found at the hospital.

Stressing what she said remained etched in her memory, Ovwigho narrated, “When we got to the car, we saw his friend. I asked him, ‘Where is my brother?’ He said he was lying in the back of the car.”

“I looked inside, I saw him tied up like a criminal. His entire body was filthy, blood coming out of his mouth and nose, and his head was badly swollen.”

She said Adeda subsequently told her he had gone to the commissioner’s office after being summoned.

“My brother said the commissioner has asked if he knew who he was. “My brother responded by asking, ‘Am I obligated to know you? Must I know you?’

“The commissioner took offense at his response and ordered his men — including his driver, PA (Personal Assistant) and others — to beat him up.”

That allegation has not been established by the police, and the commissioner denies it. Yet Ovwigho said her brother’s condition was visibly alarming.

“If you see pictures of him when they beat him up, you will be scared. They wanted to project him as mad, when nothing was wrong with him.”

She said Adeda complained of continuing stomach pain after returning home from hospital and was rushed back for further attention. “He didn’t stay long before they declared him dead.

Police measures

The police statement has carefully stopped short of assigning responsibility.

It said the Command had “taken note of allegations suggesting he was beaten by aides to the commissioner identified as Enos Attah, Oputa Okestine, and Lucky Adoh.”

One of them, Lucky Adoh, has been arrested, as police say “serious manhunt” was ongoing for the other two.”

The Command’s statement through its spokesman, SP Edafe Bright, noted the Commissioner of Police, CP, Samuel Erale, ordered a “thorough and impartial investigation.

“The investigation will examine all available evidence, including relevant video footages, eyewitness accounts, medical records, and the actions of all persons connected with the incident, to establish the facts.”

Labour livid 

To Organised Labour, the photos, allegations and the death have already crossed a dangerous line.

Delta NLC Chairman, Goodluck Ofobruku, declared, “Workers are not happy because it means some commissioners can take the law into their hands and use thugs to beat workers in place of work.

“We are shutting the secretariat. If the state government is able to convince us to come back to work, we will be here on Monday; otherwise, it will be indefinite shutdown.”

His demand was blunt: “Whoever is responsible for the beating of this worker that led to his untimely death must be brought to book.”

Another crisis

The state government has constituted an administrative panel, with representatives of government and Organised Labour, to investigate the circumstances surrounding Adeda’s death. The panel has two weeks to complete its assignment.

To Governor Sheriff Oborevwori’s administration, the episode comes after an earlier controversy also involving a commissioner and a protocol aide stirred violent confrontation around a political gathering that almost took a life.

Now, the question is no longer merely about what happened inside one government office.

It is about how power is exercised inside Delta’s corridors of authority – and what happens when an allegation of official power collides with a civil servant’s right to safety.

The swollen face in the photograph cannot answer that question.

The police investigation and the government panel now have to.