Like Boko Haram and The Nigerian Police, cult groups and anti-cult groups across various Nigerian campuses have always engaged themselves in some sort of war of attrition. And it took three bullets to snuff the life out of Chuks by cultists.

I was one of three political science students at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, chilling out with friends on the evening of 11^th June, 2005 when a call came from my brother-in-law, a major in the army.

“Nnamdi! Nnamdi! Have you heard?” Major exclaimed. Before I could compose myself, he dropped the bombshell. “Have you heard that Chuks was shot dead today at UNIPORT.” I was devastated.

Chukwuemeka Donatus Anekwe-Chive (fondly called Chuks) was my immediate and only elder brother. He was writing his final exams at the time as a student of Electrical Electronics Engineering at the University Of Port Harcourt. He was a member of the ANTI-CULT GROUP, a group commonly found on Nigerian campuses with various nomenclatures, established and funded by the school management to fight cultism on campus. And just like Boko Haram and The Nigerian Police, cult groups and anti-cult groups across various Nigerian campuses have always engaged themselves in some sort of war of attrition. And it took three bullets to snuff the life out of Chuks by cultists.

I arrived in Port Harcourt three days later accompanied by Major. We met with the police and typical of them, they were asking us for money to do their job. More so; parents of the killers were making overtures to release the criminals. One of them, a Nigerian Customs officer needed to bail his boy for the second time. It was not the boy’s first murder, in fact, he had beheaded someone before and spent a year in prison before he was released. It was under that atmosphere that I left Port-Harcourt for Awka leaving justice for Chuks to the Rivers state criminal justice system since my family could not dole out cash to the police to prosecute my own brother’s death.

I arrived Awka a very bitter person. I was full of rage at the police, the society, the cult group, and everything that was connected with Chuks’ death. I was in deep thought for days until my mind settled on retaliatory action against the members of the fraternity that shot Chuks. I fished out the list of cultists that was given to us by the police and pondered on the next line of action. I made arrangements to recruit my own “HIT” squad and felt justified with the plan since law enforcement had failed.

Then, one night a call came in from Lagos, a relation of mine, who also graduated from UNIPORT several years earlier. He sympathised with me and warned me in explicit terms not to carry out any revenge mission, we spoke at length and he pleaded with me to focus on my studies and leave everything to God, then he dropped the phone. That was how I shelved the retaliation plan.

June 11, 2012 will make it seven years since Chuks was brutally murdered in his quest for a safer campus and fight for elimination of cultism. He was cut short in his prime and left many of us devastated. The school management, the school parish priests, students and friends who came for the burial all testified to his passion and devotion to duty and academics.

The society and the State failed Chuks. There are many Chuks in various spheres of our lives who are cut down in their prime with no State investigation and prosecution to serve as deterrent to future killers, and I said to myself, if Chief Bola Ige, a serving Attorney General of the federation was murdered and up till date no killer has been found then who is poor Chukwuemeka Donatus Anekwe-Chive.

May your soul find ETERNAL PEACE.

 

Editor’s note: Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.