Nigeria, August 22, 2016 – Following the sudden death of 21-year-old son of the Bayelsa State Chief Judge, Kate Abiri, in suspicious circumstances in Abuja, an Ijaw rights group on Monday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure thorough investigation into the mysterious death and those of other Ijaw people in the federal capital territory.
The body of the victim, Warebi Abiri, was reportedly found floating in the swimming pool at a hotel in Abuja on Friday, a situation which the group claimed was a “suspicious and mysterious death”.
A statement issued by the Movement for the Defence and Protection of the Ijaw Nation and signed by its President, Godwin Selemo, queried the manner of Wareibi’s death in the pool, noting that “it beats the imagination”how a six feet young man could have drowned in a swimming pool that is not up to 8 feet in depth.
“Clearly there is more to it than meets the eye. The story does not add up”, he stated.
While lamenting the mysterious death of Warebi, the group raised serious concern over similar death of people of Ijaw extraction living in Abuja as Selemo called on President Buhari and security agencies to do a proper investigation into such sudden and suspicious deaths.
“With the painful death of 21-year old Warebi Abiri, who until his death was a graduate of Law and a student of the Nigerian Law School, Abuja, we are calling on President Buhari to launch without further delay a full scale investigation to unravel the mysteries behind the death. Many are wondering if this death could be a message to cow the judiciary, especially given the enormous pressure the opposition in Bayelsa State with their collaborators in Abuja are exerting on the judiciary over the election petition challenging the victory of the ruling party in the state”.
The group pointed out that the investigation was pressing especially when in less than two months ago, another Ijaw man, Ebiowe Doukpola, was reportedly strangled to death in Abuja by some unknown persons.
“While some people were quick to dismiss Doukpola’s death given his well- known involvement in hard drugs and other related shady deals, particularly his close ties with a former governor of Bayelsa State who was said to be a major patron of his drug cartel business, we regardless condemn his gruesome murder which indeed should be investigated’, the group further stated.
The statement noted that while the group was not inputting outright political motive into the reported killings, it, however, said it was important to explore all possible angles in an attempt to get to the root causes of these deaths.
