‘He died of suffocation’

SUSPECTED kidnappers of the Associate Professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Dr Paul Erie, whose decomposing body was found in a shallow grave 105 days after he was abducted in his Igbanke town in Orhionmown Local Council of Edo State, have given a narration of how Erie died in their custody and they thereafter collected money from his wife.

All the suspects in the crime are from the community and four of them are already in police custody.
Erie was kidnapped on June 16 and was never seen again.

One of suspects who accompanied security operatives to the site where he was buried and their camp in the forest, Samson Ibiegbena, said their ring leader was one Lucky Umeh who is based in Lagos, now on the run and another simply identified as Arikpo also on the run, who he claimed introduced him to the gang when he came from Lagos to see his family.

The other suspects in police custody included Stephen Usiagwu alias Finish and Go, Jeremiah Amayo, Eboigbe Monday aka Yawa and Ejime Oyakhire
He confessed that Erie’s mouth was gagged when he was shouting in the night in their camp and he may have died of suffocation.

“I didn’t follow them to do the work; they had already kidnapped him from his house when they now called me to meet them in the bush here. They were four that went for the operation but when I came here, I met three of them and they said they had sent the fourth person out on an errand.”

“The man was shouting in the night and Lucky sent one of us to go and tie his mouth because he said with his shouting, hunters who had gone out hunting in the night could hear his voice. He now went and tied his mouth and came back to sit with us where we were sitting. After some time, he told him to go and loosen the muffle since he was not hearing the man’s sound again. The other guy went and came back to tell us that the man was not breathing again and is not moving at all. We quickly went there and saw his lifeless body. This was around 2:00 am.”

He continued: “After his death, we left the place and started consulting among ourselves what should we do with the body, then Arikpo suggested that the body should be deposited by the roadside but Lucky Umeh opposed it and said the best thing was to bury him. He now sent one of us to go bring tools to dig the ground and before he came, it was already 6:00 am and we dug the grave and buried the man. As at that time, his wife has not brought the money. We now suggested that since the man was dead, we should just leave the place and forget about him. But Lucky refused saying he does not have money to go back to Lagos.”

“He started calling the woman and the woman said she wanted to talk to her husband but he told her that he was not with her husband that she could call back and when she called back, he told her he was in Agbor and that he was not where her husband was but that she should bring the money with her and that was how he controlled the woman to a point where the money was collected and when they came back, he told us it was N400,000 which we shared.”

On how Erie was kidnapped, Samson said: “It was Lucky Umeh that suggested that we should kidnap the man. I was not physically present when they kidnapped the man but they told me that when they got to his house, he was not there so they waited for about 30 minutes and then the man drove in and came down from his vehicle and he was about to open the gate, Lucky rushed out of his hiding place and grabbed him and the other people now came to him and they took him away.”

“He spent two days before he died. We were feeding him with bread because he insisted that he was a palace chief and does not eat outside. His legs were chained then we just sat and watch over him. Lucky brought the leg chain that we used and said it was Ejime Oyakhire that bought the gun for him.”

“I was not happy with the man’s death; I even told them that I am not happy because the man has helped my younger brother to gain admission into Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma.”

Samson said he used to operate commercial tricycle in Lagos, “I am from Igbanke but based in Lagos. I came home to see my children and I met with my friend. After the incident, I ran back to Lagos until my mother now called that I should come and take my children to their mother since schools would soon resume. That was how I came back.”

Shortly after Erie’s decomposing body was exhumed by police pathologists in the presence of family members, a member of the family, Tony Erie in a very emotional voice described the act as barbaric. “This is a case of extreme barbarism, these people are subhuman in what we have seen. To say that people who used to dine and wine with him are the perpetrators of this dastardly act is the unfortunate thing on earth. I am yet to see or hear that he has problems with anybody so why these sub-humans chose to do what they did beats our imagination, the family is extremely sad.”

“We are saddened because he was fighting a cause and from what they told us, they said people have told him in confidence that they have kidnapped some persons in Igbanke and that there are seven more to be kidnapped and he was said to have asked them, ‘am I included?’ and they said no. The people advised him to run out of the town but he refused and instead called a security meeting of prominent citizens of Igbanke and from that meeting, measures were put in place to avert further kidnappings. But very unfortunately, he became a victim of what he was trying to fight.”

While condemning the act, the Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike, promised to go after all the suspects still on the run and bring them to justice. “This is a day of mixed feelings to us, it is a breakthrough but our hearts will go out to the families of late Professor Paul Erie. As you are aware, on the 16th of June, he was kidnapped, these bad people took him away and since June he has not been seen despite the fact that they collected ransom from the family. Many thanks to the dexterity and passion for excellence of the detectives on this job and with the help of technology, today, we do not only have them in our net but we have been able to successfully exhume the remains of the erudite scholar where they buried him.”