By Coleman Anaele
It was a gory sight to behold when on Friday, October 6, 2023 as the people of Emohe Village in Emii in Owerri North LGA of Imo State were woken up in the early hours with a distress call of the sudden death of their kinsman, Pastor Allwell Anyasodor and his wife, Mrs Scholastica Anyasodor in their residence as they were murdered in gruesome manner by unknown assassins believed to have been perpetrated in the previous night (Thursday, 5/10/23).
Citizens’ Mirror findings revealed that their killers may have perhaps taken advantage of the noise emanating from a social activity going on not too far from the deceased couples’ home knowing that the people’s attention particularly the youths would be at that function when they allegedly beat the prying eyes of the villagers and sneaked into the compound of their victims and murdered them with cutlass.
They succeeded in slicing the throat of the wife, Mrs Scholastica Anyasodor to death with some degrees of matchet cuts on her arms, while the husband was also given degrees of matchet cut before he was dragged into his new building where they set his body ablaze with the lifeless body of his wife in her pool of body beside her husband mulilated body.
The assalaints left their victims compound the way they came without being caught.
On arrival at the deceaced couple home, in Emohe village, the elder brother of the late Pastor, Mr Theophilus Anyasodor, was seen griefing over the sudden death of his younger brother and his wife and could not hold back his tears while he narrated the ugly development that had befallen his family and their community, describing it as quite strange and kept wondering why his late brother, Allwell Anyasodor could be burnt beyond recognition after his captors had succeeded in snuffing the life out of him.
According to him, ” I spoke with my brother on phone when all of us had retired to our houses from a funeral that took place in our village. In our conversation he informed me of the vetinary personnel( a lady) that would be in his compound early morning on the next day, been Friday to administer vaccines on his birds( live chickens), because he used to breed chickens, and both of us had a pleasant conversation that night, unknown to me that it was going to be our last communication because we were not living together in thesamecompound.
On the next morning been Friday, 6/10/2023, the vaccinator lady on arrival at my brother’s compound gave me a spontenous distress call, alerting me of blood spilled all over the compound as she suspected something terrible had happened.
We did not hesitate as a family when we arrived at the scene, and traced the pool of blood to his new house in the same compound, opened the sitting room, what we saw was beyond our imagination and my brother’s wife throat had a deep cut and parts of her bodies severed with traces of cutlass cuts and she may have bled to death, while her husband’s body was set ablaze after killing him with the same sharp object, and only God knows how they gave them such a painful death.
He told our investigative reporter that, his family later called the station at Agbala which was close by and the police officers responded as they came and evacuated the mutilated bodies of the couple to their station where necessary entries of the incident was done, and later moved their bodies to Agbala Morgue where they were both deposited in company of some of our family members.”
“The irony of it all, is that they did not steal his Lexus Saloon Car neither did they pick any valuable thing away, except two cell phones that belonged to the late couple were taken by their killers.
“During the arrival of the police, a cutlass was discovered with blood stain on it and the police went away with it on arrival to serve as an exhibit.” Elder Theophilus Anyasodor averred.
The Divisional Police Station at Agbala, when contacted over the incident neither confirmed nor denied receiving the bodies of the couple as at the time of filling this report.
The late Pastor Allwell Anyasodor, it was disclosed, retired as a banker with First Bank, Orlu branch in Imo State about a decade ago and later joined a company called Ferdinand group also in Orlu and was a pulpit pastor in one of the Penticostal churches until his untimely gruesome murder with his wife, Mrs Scholastica Anyasodor, a native of Umuakuru Emekuku in Owerri North LGA, both of them were joined in marriage and blessed with children.
The late Pastor Allwell Anyasodor was described as a very peaceful man, a unifier and God fearing person, an accompanished statesman per excellence as his family members were lost for words as to what could have transpired that earned him such barbaric killing by his assailants who were suspected to have been hired.
The late couple were aged 70 and 63 years respectively before their death.
The ugly incident was described by some elders of the community as strange and unprecedented that affected the community, while calling for a quick intervention of the government to provide them with security, as no one knows who could be the next victim of such dastardly act.
Our findings revealed that the Emohe village have no functioning local vigilante, as such, the security of the area and their nearby neighbours are porous which perhaps gave the assailants the leeway to carryout their nefarious act, without a release of gun shot on the air, because they were not confronted by any security formations, and as such had a field day unchallenged and left the same way they came.
These loopholes have further put a question on the security network in Owerri North, it’s neighbouring communities and Imo State at large which calls for the quick response of the State government to address the ugly trend that is spreading like a wild fire before it goes out of hand.
