Community seeks justice over murder of Enugu’s hospital head

Aku community under the auspices of Aku General Assembly (AGA), Igboetiti local government area in Enugu State yesterday vowed to do all in their power to ensure that those behind the killing of their daughter and head of Nursing Services at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Enugu, Dr. Maria Amadi, are brought to book.

They also expressed worries with the handling of the matter by the police, alleging that not much effort had been made to track those behind the incident even with clues provided by the family.Mrs. Amadi was murdered at about 5:00p.m. on March 21, this year, in front of her residence at Transekulu, Enugu. She became a Deputy Director (Nursing Services) at the neuropsychiatric hospital in December last year.

Apparently touched by the development, which has continued to elicit negative reactions, the state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, announced a N5 million reward to anybody with useful information about the killers.The police on their own said they have arrested two persons in connection with the incident but are yet to unveil the identities of those arrested. They have also failed to brief on further developments, even with unconfirmed reports that the woman made some “useful statements” to the Divisional Police Officer in the area on her hospital bed before passing on.

Addressing reporters yesterday, President General of Aku General Assembly, Chief Fidelis Ezeoyili, stated that the killers of Mrs. Amadi would not go scout-free, stressing that four of their natives had been killed in the state in the last three years.

“We are very much worried and that is why we are addressing this press conference so that the police will also intensify their own efforts. They should not see this matter as something that should lie low. We will not take it. We will make necessary efforts to ensure that those responsible are brought to book. This is not the first Aku man or woman that has been assassinated in Enugu in the last couple of years.

“In the last three years, more than four Aku persons have been assassinated in Enugu and if we allow the trend to continue it means that one day you will wake up and will not see any Aku man moving around the streets,” he said.

The distraught husband to the deceased, Sir Marcel Amadi, has appealed to the Inspector General of Police to take over the investigation of his wife’s death. Amadi, a retiree, said his late wife who was the breadwinner of the family, made some “revealing statements” to the police before her death. He stated that his wife was killed following a document from the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria over the accreditation of the School of Nursing at the Neuropsychiatric hospital.