Ezebuala and his children (Chinemerem, 14, a boy, and his younger sisters – Chiamaka, 12 and Nmesomachukwu 10), were going home after attending a worship service at the Christ Salvation Pentecostal Church that evening when several bombs, believed to be IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) planted by suspected members of the Boko Haram sect exploded simultaneously at various points on two busy roads in the Sabongari area of Kano city – Enugu/Igbo road, near International Hotel and the stretch of space from House number 38, 39, 40 and 41 on New Road, directly opposite the popular Ado Bayero Square.
When the smoke cleared, 39 people lay dead and many others sustained various degrees of injury, ranging from burns to extensive lacerations. Among the dead were the three children of Ezebuala, who himself was severely injured, leading to his being hospitalized at the Aminu Kano University Teaching Hospital.
Ezebuala, a native of Uga, is a Kano-based businessman. His dead son, Chinemerem, was a very brilliant student of Konigin Des Friendens International School, Uga, a private school he attended on the scholarship of the director, Monsignor John-Bosco Akam.
As had been his practice, Chinemerem traveled to Kano to spend the long vacation with his parents and siblings after finishing the Junior Secondary School Certificate Examination. The young lad was looking forward to going into a senior secondary school at the end of the holidays in the first week of September. Alas, that dream had died a violent, fiery death on a street in Sabongari, Kano, leaving his mother wailing and inconsolable, just like the biblical Rachel, of whom it was written, “In Ramah, a voice is heard, crying and weeping loudly. Rachel mourns for her children and refuses to be comforted, because they are dead.”
A kinsman of Ezebuala and Chairman of Umuchiedo family, Ezihe-Umueze kindred, Uga, Mr. Chimezie Ezenwa told Sunday Sun that Chinemerem’s ill-fated vacation began on July 14 when he left the village and arrived Kano the next day in high spirits elated by the thought of re-uniting with family members. His safe arrival had done much to calm his 78-year-old grandmother, Madam Helen Ezebuala, a stroke survivor struggling to cope with the challenge of severely impaired mobility.
But the old woman’s joy became short-lived barely two weeks after Chinemerem joined his siblings and parents as the blast claimed him, Chiamaka and Nmesomachukwu who until their untimely death were pupils of Precious Gem International School, Kano.
Recalling how he learnt about the tragedy that befell the Ezebuala family, Ezenwa said “On July 29, somebody called me and urged me to call my brother. He said that there had been a bomb blast at Sabongari Kano. I immediately called Nnamdi’s line but the phone was switched of; then I called his wife and she told me amidst tears that her husband was in the hospital because of the injuries he sustained from the bomb blast. She also said that she had not seen any of her children. She did not know at the time that the corpses of her lovely children were already at the Aminu Kano Hospital mortuary. It pained me that my brother’s children were so cruelly killed without any provocation on the same day on a prayer ground.”
Ezenwa further disclosed that Ezebuala is the only child of his mother, who has been bedridden for many years, adding that the kindred is in a fix on how to disclose the news of the untimely death of her grandchildren to Madam Helen.
In the face of the tragedy, a decision allegedly taken by the Kano State Government to conduct mass burial for victims of the blast stirred up a stout resistance by the leadership of the Uga Improvement Union, Kano State branch led by the Chairman, Sir Christopher Ugochukwu.
Two members of the UIU delegation that took the children’s corpses to Anambra for burial, Mr. Samuel Ezeamaku and Brother Basil Ezeugo, recounted to Sunday Sun the battles they fought to secure the bodies of the three children who had been marked for mass burial in Kano, saying that they had to bribe the police and other security agents to facilitate the release of their corpses.
“When we received the news of the death of the children, it was already late and because of the security situation, we went to the scene very early and were able to identify the bodies of our young promising children killed in the blasts, but we could not claim them as soldiers insisted on taking them to the mortuary themselves. We followed the soldiers and made sure their bodies were properly deposited at the Aminu Kano mortuary. We then initiated moves on how to get their bodies out from the morgue when we received information that the Kano State Government was planning to give the victims mass burial.”
“On several occasions, we had to bribe the police who initially refused to give us access to the bodies of our children. In fact, we smuggled their bodies out of the state and brought them back home where we deposited them at Mater Amabilis Mortuary, Akokwa pending the time they will be buried. Despite all the money we gave to the police, they still did not give us the burial permit,” Ezeamaku said.
He also disclosed that till date, no financial assistance has come from the government, stressing that the Kano branch of UIU bore all the expenses incurred in repatriating the corpses to Uga.
Meanwhile, the youths of the community have been restive and spoiling for reprisal attacks against people of northern extraction in the state. However, elders of the community have been putting pressure on them to soft-pedal. The youth leader, Mr. Martin Umeugwunne expressing the anger of the youths said: “If they have declared war on the Igbo, then let us tell them that we too are warriors because nobody kills an Uga indigene and gets away with it, but we shall continue to hearken to the voice of our leaders to remain calm pending the response from both our state government and that of Kano State.”
The chairman of Uga Democratic Vanguard, Sir Peter Okala described the incessant bombing of innocent people in the North by Boko Haram as a national calamity, adding that the death of the three promising children whose lives were cut short was the highest form of cruelty.
One major source of deep concern for the kinsmen of Ezebuala is the fact that his mother has been in failing health since she suffered a stroke sometime before the bombing incident. The worry now is how to care for the hapless old woman. Then there is the other issue of how to inform her about the fate that befell her beloved grandson and the siblings.
He lambasted the Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Kabiru Kwankwaso for attempting to bury the children alongside other victims in a mass grave, a practice that is contrary to the tradition and culture of Uga people, who forbid that their children should be buried in a strange land. He implored the federal government to seriously tackle the menace of insecurity and insurgency in the country.
While describing the death of the three promising school children as a calamity that has thrown the community into total darkness and cast a mournful pall over Uga, the President General, Uga Improvement Union, UIU, Dr. Goddie Akam, who spoke through UIU Public Relations Officer, Nze Francis Umeakubuike, disclosed that the community had declared days of mourning for the three children cut down by Boko Haram, necessitating the cancellation of this year’s New Yam festival.
Culled from The Sun
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