FROM CHUKS ONUOHA, UMUAHIA.

Pa Kalu Elem Okore and his wife, Angelina, have remained inconsolable since their 24-year-old daughter, Miss Anita Oluchi Okore, was killed in Port Harcourt, Rivers State by three men believed to be ritualists.

The unfortunate lady met her untimely and gruesome end when she travelled from Abakaliki, Ebonyi State to the Garden City to visit her elder sister, Dr Mrs Ugochi Igwe, in April 2015.

Based on information pieced together by her father, Pa Kalu, Sunday Sun gathered that after the young lady alighted from the bus somewhere along the East-West road, Eleme, Port Harcourt, she called her father and informed him that she had arrived the city and was about to take a taxi to her sister’s place. Oluchi flagged down a taxi, told the driver her destination and boarded. Three other men were also in the taxi.

They had just driven some distance when she noticed that something was wrong. The strange attitude of the three occupants of the taxi made her uncomfortable and she sensed danger. Her fear became real when the taxi suddenly veered off her route and headed to direction she did not know.

Then it dawned on her that there was trouble. She quickly put a call across to her father, informing him of the situation. As Pa Kalu told Sunday Sun, the frightened young lady said: “Daddy, I don’t know where the taxi I entered is taking me to.”
She pleaded with the people to let her go and even passed her phone to them to listen to her father’s pleas to them to spare her, promising to pay ransom. He even invoked the name of the Most High in the hope that abductors had a modicum of reverence for God, but all his pleas fell on deaf ears. The abductors were said to have told Pa Kalu that giving them money could not solve the problem and brusquely returned the phone to Oluchi, who continued to plead for her life as her father listened on the open line. After a short while the phone went dead, and that was the last time Pa Okore heard the voice of his lovely daughter. Hours rolled into days and then weeks, yet no call came from her or the abductors. The family organized a search and also reported the matter to the police, the State Security Service (SSS) and the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), in Port Harcourt.

What ensued from that day was pure mental torture for the Okore family as they daily searched everywhere. As the weeks passed and the abductors made no contact with the family, it began to dawn on Pa Okore that Oluchi’s disappearance was not a case of kidnapping for ransom. That suspicion became real when her mutilated body was eventually discovered where the ritual killers dumped it. The grief-stricken father lamented: “It is only God who knows what my daughter saw in their hands before they killed her in cold blood and harvested her vital organs for rituals,” Pa Okore lamented.

Before the discovery of the victims remains, the combined team of the SSS and DMI working on the belief that the victim could probably had been abducted by ritualists given that they did not contact the family, obtained and reviewed the central call log of MTN GSM network. Through the review, the investigating team found out the location of Oluchi’s last call. The effort paid off as three of the ritualists were arrested in a hotel, where they were enjoying the N1.5 million their clients paid for the body parts they procured for them. The culprits then led security operatives to where they dumped what remained of Oluchi’s body after cutting out vital organs.

Oluchi was buried on Thursday, May 7th, 2015, in Eziobasi, Amodu Ututu, in Arochukwu LGA of Abia State, after a funeral service held at the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, Umule Parish, Aba.
At the burial of the murdered young lady, Pa Okore wailed uncontrollably at her graveside. Oluchi was the daughter that always put smiles on his face each time she was around.

Expectedly, the painful loss of their daughter made them look very frail, emaciated and deeply troubled.
In their remarks, they both wished that those who murdered Oluchi had asked for money. That even if they could not afford the ransom, they could have borrowed at any cost to save their treasured jewel, who Okore described as a unique daughter.

He recalled how he had laboured for 24 years and Oluchi from nursery, primary, secondary school and then to Abia State University, where the beautiful lady bagged a Bachelor of Science degree in Banking and Finance, before going for the national youth service in 2013 and served as an accountant with Kenol Investments, a private firm. She later served as the sales manager of the company.
After completing the youth service, Oluchi took up appointment at Unity FM based in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, where she worked as the accountant until she fell into the hands of ritual killers during the ill-fated trip to Port Harcourt.

In his tribute to Oluchi, Pa Okore amid sobs said of his daughter: “You showed genuine love to those that came your way, you spent all you had to make us happy. You were unique by all standards. You labored and had no opportunity to reap the fruits of your labour. The Almighty God knows what to do with those who murdered you and their sponsors. No one of them will be left unpunished.”

Oluchi’s mother in her own tribute said: “You were always in a hurry to put things in order whenever you were with us at home. You made every corner of our house take a new look; you cared for your parents and siblings alike. Only God knows why he allowed you to be murdered at a tender age. Go in peace, Oluchi my daughter.”

Please accept this flower and hear the words I am not able to speak.