By EMAMEH GABRIEL
It was an ordinary errand, the usual mundane chore that forms the fabric of a family’s life. A freezer was needed for the shop. It was a practical purchase, an investment in a small business that fed four sons and built dreams of university education. So, on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Emeka Ihekwereme, a building contractor, and his wife, Mrs. Chikodi Ihekwereme, a trader, left their home in Breden Estate, Lugbe, and drove towards the city centre. They were married for 18 years. They did not know they were driving towards their deaths.
They never returned home.
The story that has since unfolded is clearly a damning indictment of a society teetering on the brink of lawlessness. It is a story of how the very institutions meant to protect citizens have been supplanted by a vicious, predatory ecosystem of touts—‘agberos’—who operate with impunity on the streets of the nation’s capital. And it is a story that should shame every official who has allowed this festering sore to grow.
The details, as pieced together from the tearful accounts of the family they left behind, are enough to curdle your blood. The couple had bought the freezer. It was placed in the boot of their car, but it didn’t sit quite right. This minor inconvenience, this everyday hiccup, was all the invitation needed for the vultures to descend.
Three touts, preying on vehicle owners like hyenas on a vulnerable antelope, forcefully entered their car. What happened next was a nightmare unfolding in the bright afternoon sun on the Mabushi flyover bridge. There was a struggle—a desperate, horrifying fight for control of the steering wheel. A police officer would later recount to a grieving brother how Emeka, fighting for his and his wife’s life, lost control. The car slammed into a bridge pillar.
They did not die instantly. They were rushed to the Abuja National Hospital, still clinging to life. But then, another layer of our collective failure revealed itself. We are told they were left unattended. In a cruel, bureaucratic catch-22, the hospital allegedly insisted on a relative’s signature for a bill before offering critical care, a heartless policy that values procedure over pulse. By the time a relative arrived, it was only to be directed to the mortuary.
The scene his brother, Mr. Chidibere Ihekwereme, describes is visceral, haunting. His sister-in-law’s head was severely shattered. His brother had a terrible injury from his forehead down to his nose. These are the images a family must now carry forever, replacing the last memories of a couple who left home full of purpose.
Meanwhile, back at the scene of the crime, a festering anger boiled over. Sympathisers captured the three touts. In a brutal act of primal jungle justice, two were set on fire. A third was rescued by police. While this mob violence must be condemned outright—a society cannot function if it replicates the brutality of the criminals—it is a symptom of a profound disease. It is the rage of a populace that has lost all faith in the system to deliver justice. When the state is absent, the jungle takes over.
And left in the wake of this horror are four sons. Divine, studying abroad, who received the news in a call that will forever divide his life into a ‘before’ and ‘after’. Bright, seventeen, who had been minding his mother’s shop. He was the one who called his mother’s phone, only for a stranger to answer and ask if there was an adult with him. How does a boy process that? How does he, along with his younger brothers Daniel and Golden, ever feel safe again?
Their mother was described as a kind hearted woman who helped many. Their father was a man devoted to God, determined in all he did. Their crime? Trying to balance a freezer in their boot.
This is not an isolated incident. From Nyanya to the Federal Secretariat, these unofficial motor parks are multiplying like cancer. Local government authorities hand out tickets, legitimising these criminals, increasing their numbers and their audacity. They prey on drivers parking anywhere, even where no ‘No Parking’ signs exist, armed with sticks and stones to damage vehicles and brutalise anyone who questions them. They are not parking attendants; they are extortionists operating under a veneer of official tolerance.
The Market at Trademore, where Chikodi sold her foodstuff, understood the depth of this loss. They declared a two-day mourning. Tragically, they were also mourning another couple, killed in a separate incident in Enugu. The chairman of the trader’s association called the deaths incidents where they were “pushed to their deaths.” He is right.
This is a push from the abyss of agberoism that we have all allowed to flourish. It is a push from a healthcare system that can be crippled by heartless bureaucracy. It is a push from a law enforcement apparatus that is seemingly unable to clear its own streets of blatant criminality.
The Ihekweremes did not just die in a car crash. They were killed by a system that has failed. They were killed by our collective complacency. They went to buy a freezer and met the lawless heart of Abuja instead. Until that heart is surgically removed by a government finally shamed into action, every one of us is just a wrong parking spot away from a similar tragedy. The agberos have gone too far, and it is long past time they were stopped.
Discussion about this post