24 Years After: Was Eddie Nawgu A Victim Or A Villain?

Eddie Nawgu in his Anioma Healing Centre back in the days. Image credit: Wikipedia

This November makes it 24 years since a once-popular spiritualist Eddie Okeke - also known as Eddie Nawgu - was arrested (and some say, abducted) and allegedly summarily executed by the Bakassi Boys in Anambra State. At the time of Eddy Nawgu’s death in November 2000, Bakassi Boys had been legally recognised as a vigilante outfit for Anambra State via a special law in August of that year according to a Sahara Reporters article in 2022.

The case appears to have been mostly forgotten since then. So, this is to revisit it after almost a quarter century with the hope of establishing the truth of the matter while ensuring justice where need be. To achieve this, this article will quickly try to present and/or seek viewpoints from a wide spectrum of voices: Authoritative human rights watchdogs, the Eddie Okeke family, members of the public with the relevant awareness, and possibly more.

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SEE ALSO: In This World, You Need Willpower (about why and how to develop strong willpower for achieving success at any endeavor)

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What HRW And CLEEN Has To Say About The Arrest, Torture, And Killing Of Eddie Okeke (a.k.a. Eddie Nawgu)

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) together with West-Africa-focused Center for Law Enforcement Education and Network (CLEEN) published a detailed joint report on the Eddie Nawgu incident in May 2002. You can access the report in question here.

Reading through the HRW/CLEEN report, the impression I get is that Eddie Nawgu was likely a victim of public opinion gone wrong. Very much contrary to what I ever learned about Eddie Nawgu and the stories surrounding his death, the HRW/CLEEN narratives actually mirror those of the persecution and public execution of Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament literature: A case of a mainstream religious establishment persecuting an outlier for being different.

We can't be preaching that "Jesus Christ is Lord" today and still be favouring options that Jesus Christ is known to have been up against while he lived on the Planet. It’s a major reason why I want us to revisit this issue: Was Eddie Okeke actually guilty as accused back then? If not, how can justice be served appropriately?

According to the HRW account, 

Eddie Okeke was well-known in the community; he had set up the Anioma Healing Centre in the large compound of his home in Nawgu which attracted hundreds of visitors. Many of the press reports which appeared at the time of his death replicated the Bakassi Boys allegations about him - that he was a criminal who had engaged in assault, extortion, drug dealing, trafficking in children, and ritual killing - fuelling the belief that the Bakassi Boys had caught yet another high-profile criminal.

Human Rights Watch and CLEEN do not know whether there is any substance to the allegations that Eddie Okeke was involved in criminal activities. However, the information we uncovered in Onitsha suggested various possible explanations for his killing, including resentments over his wealth and fame, his outspokenness in expressing critical views and a longstanding dispute that he had with a local traditional ruler and other members of the Catholic Church, who had threatened him and attacked his home on several previous occasions. Information gathered by Human rights Watch and CLEEN from a variety of sources in Nawgu and Onitsha, including relatives and friends of Eddie Okeke indicates that the true explanation for his death may lie in a combination of these factors.

As you can see above, the HRW/CLEEN joint report was probably heavily based on the testimonials of Eddie Okeke’s family and friends. Even the content of the report appears to reflect this too. 

Thus, I must acknowledge that such testimonials from the family and friends of the accused shouldn't have been a dominant source for the report - since such family and friends are not likely to be objective in their accounts. So, we need more voices including unrestricted first-hand accounts.

Accordingly, a major feature of the report is a long heart-rending eye-witness account by no less a person than the wife of the late spiritualist, Joyce Okeke. Therefore, in this attempt to revisit the issue with the intention of establishing the truth and ensuring justice, I am presenting the account of Joyce Okeke exactly as shared by Human Rights Watch and CLEEN. This is to represent a reader's first encounter with Eddie Okeke's side of the story. Members of the family can also use the opportunity of the public forum at the end of this presentation, to give direct accounts to the public without restrictions.

The Story Of Joyce Okeke According To HRW And CLEEN

The first part of the Joyce Okeke story reads as follows:

“It was on 4 November 2000, at about 4.00 a.m. I was asleep. [...] Suddenly I heard a loud bang on the bedroom door. Someone said: "Open this door or I'll break it down!" 

I ran to the door. My husband was sleeping. There was a second bang. I opened the door. I saw a lot of men with pump action guns and matchets. 

They said: "Where is your husband?" I asked them who they were. They pushed me aside. I called my husband to wake up. They went and pulled him from the bed. 

He was asking them: "Who are you?" They said: "We are Bakassi Boys. It's a government order." There were about forty of them and more outside."

She continued:

"My husband asked them what they wanted. They were hitting him. They dragged him outside. One Bakassi was standing at the door with a gun. He told me to go outside and cocked his gun at me. They were still beating my husband.

Another group came in and asked me to show them my husband's room. There was a boy in front of them. I recognized him as a local boy, an armed robber. He had previously assisted people who were after my husband. 

They turned the whole room upside down. The boy was doing it; the others were watching. They said: "Where are your husband's guns?" I said: "Which guns?" There was one double-barrel gun there but they were asking for pump-action guns and pistols. I told them we didn't have any. 

One of them raised his matchet and said: "I will cut off your head if you don't give us those guns." They found nothing. He said: "Turn your back and I will cut off your head." He charged towards me with his matchet raised, then put it down. 

They said: "We'll take you with your husband and if we don't find what we want, he's finished." I went with them and asked a girl to close the door. One of the Bakassi asked me if I wanted to show them anything. I said: "No, there are only children in there." 

Among other things, Joyce Okeke also mentioned some of the impact of the event on their children (7 of them, and 1 still in the womb then, according to the HRW/CLEEN report here in question). So, she continued her narratives thus:

"The children were scared so we had locked the door. The Bakassi wanted to shoot. I said: "No, there are children there." He said: "Which children? The ones you sell?" I asked the children to open. The Bakassi just looked in and left them.

Meanwhile I heard the Bakassi outside shooting. I came out with them. Some were behind me, some were in front. I was just wearing my sleeping clothes and wrapper. My husband was just wearing his shorts. They had used his shirt to tie his hands. 

Outside, I saw Bakassi everywhere. They were wearing black, with some red material tied on their heads, hands and guns. They had made people in the compound lie face down outside. They were hitting them on their backs with matchets.

They took me out towards the gate. I could see my husband and about fifteen people ahead with one Bakassi group. I was about ten or fifteen steps away. One Bakassi shouted at me: "If you come any further, we'll shoot you down." 

But a Bakassi behind me was telling me to move. The one in front said: "Are you deaf? If you move, we'll shoot". I turned again. The one behind me said: "Move". I stood still. I said: "I don't know what to do." The ones behind eventually said: "Go back". I started going back. Some of them ran back in and said I should go along with them. They came into the house.

A car and a jeep were parked outside. They told me to give them the keys and open the gate. I called the boy who locks the gate but there was no answer. One Bakassi moved in a flash and slapped me across the eyes very hard. I fell behind the chair. He pulled me from behind with my wrapper. He was trying to strip me. I pulled the wrapper tightly from the front. He started shaking me and saying: "Who do you think you are?"

The Bakassi outside were calling them to come out again. They ran off, taking my husband and fifteen other people, all young men. They took three vehicles. Little did I know they were going to my father-in-law's compound. After they left I heard gunshots for about an hour. Later, I heard that they had picked up my husband's father, elder brother, and another relative.

At about noon, I was sitting in the armchair when I heard people outside screaming. They ran in, saying: "The Bakassi have come back!" I went out and met them at the gate. One had a belt of cartridges on one shoulder and a gun. He asked for the particulars to our cars and said: "Your husband said to tell you to give us those guns." I said: "Which guns?" He told me not to pretend, but I said it was not possible as he didn't have any guns. 

They took the whole file of car particulars and the keys. They took five vehicles. There was no clear command among them, but there was one man they called "Boss."

Before they left, they said they would search the whole compound for the guns and I should go with them. As we went round, they said: "This land is too big. It is bigger than a governor's." They saw a mentally-ill boy in the compound. They said: "Your husband is making people mad." The boy's mother came and explained that it was the boy's condition. They said that was not true, that my husband was turning normal people into mad people. Then they left.

I sent someone to report the matter to the police. The governor was away and the deputy governor, commissioner of police, and deputy commissioner of police were not there either. I asked some friends to call the governor. He promised them he would ask the Bakassi to release my husband. 

That was on Saturday. Up until Monday my husband was still there. I didn't know what was going on. I sent people to the Bakassi office in Onitsha. They were refused entry. The Bakassi threatened them with knives and sent them away. They said: "Go away or we'll kill you." They attacked some of them. I saw the marks on their backs. I didn't go there myself as I was too scared”.

Members Of The Public Who Are Familiar With The Eddie Nawgu Story (Or Have Any Meaningful Contribution To Make) Are Invited To Comment On This

By this article, I want to establish an absolutely transparent premise for establishing the actual truth of what led to the death of Eddie Okeke (popularly known as Eddie Nawgu) in November 2000. Therefore, based on the above account, and other sources that may be available to the members of the public, I hereby offer this public forum for anyone to give a personal account.

To submit an entry to this public discussion, simply comment on this post by using a Gmail account to sign in to the Google ecosystem. This option is to raise the chances of having only genuine accounts from real people without compromising important privacy concerns. Thank you.

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Chinedu Desmond Nweke is the Founder of Awake Digest Magazine. Among other things, he is a professional solution-oriented researcher, writer, brand/content strategist, as well as a human rights activist. You can reach him one on one via LinkedIn or doctordes101@gmail.com.