Ugochukwu Ozuah: Married on Saturday, Killed Thursday

With his marriage on September 15 to his sweetheart, Joan Azubuike, 36-year-old Ugochukwu Ozuah was looking forward to savouring the joy of a new phase in his journey of life.

After the euphoria of the wedding, the newly wedded couple went on honeymoon at Whispering Palms, Badagry, where they spent three days and returned to Lagos on September 18, all ecstatic about the new life they were to share together.

But their joy and that of their families was cut short as two days after the honeymoon ended, Ozuah was killed on Thursday, September 20, by some police officers who allegedly shot him in Gbagada, Lagos at about 10pm.

According to THISDAY findings, the deceased, a former student of King’s College, Lagos was allegedly murdered by the policemen who were on patrol.

The deceased was said to have been shot twice on his chest while he was seeing off a friend, Irikefe Omene, who had visited him. Those who spoke to THISDAY said the policemen were drunk when they shot Ozuah without provocation.

Omene, who was with the deceased when he was shot, still looking dazed, told THISDAY that the whole scenario flashed past like a film.

Narrating what happened on that fateful Thursday night, he said: “I had visited my friend Ugo and his wife at their residence in Gbagada on Thursday. This was barely two days after they had come back from their honeymoon at Whispering Palms.

“At the end of our lively discussion, Ugo decided to drop me at the estate gate so I could get a taxi because he said taxis are not allowed into the estate where he lived. On that note, we drove to the gate but as we were approaching the expressway, an ash blue car overtook us.

“But they stopped when they approached some policemen who were in front. We both saw them getting down and we thought it was the routine police check.  The next thing, Ugo stopped the car so that we could both flag down a taxi.

  “As we were about to come down, the next thing I heard was either ‘who goes there” or “who’s there’ accompanied by gun shots. As the shots rang out, Ugo fell and I ran to the back of the vehicle to hide.

“The occupants of the vehicle which the police had stopped before ours also ran to the back of Ugo’s vehicle to hide. I then decided to run for help so that they don’t kill all of us. I quickly ran back to the estate.”

According to Omene, immediately Joan (Ugo’s wife) saw him, she began to scream and inquire about her husband’s whereabouts.

“It was as if Joan knew that Ugo was dead because immediately I came back she ran out and began to ask me where he was. I couldn’t tell a newly wedded wife that her husband of four days was shot by the police.

“When I did not respond, she immediately called Ugo’s elder sister Nkechi. It was Nkechi I told that the police had shot Ugo. We later drove to the scene of the incident and it was there we met the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) from the Anthony Police Station.

“According to the DPO, he had stormed the scene based on a phone call that somebody was shot. I quickly corrected the erroneous impression that Ugo was shot by somebody. I told him that it was his men that shot Ugo but he debunked it,” he said.

While all this was happening, the body of the deceased was still lying at the scene of the incident. Omene said the body was only moved to the hospital at Joan’s insistence, while they left him behind to handle the police.

He drove Ozuah’s car to the police station, where he eventually received the news of his death.

Omene lamented that he was the one to be the bearer of the news, a thought that overwhelms his emotions, causing him to weep profusely, muttering: “I can’t believe I was the last person to see him alive.”

Reminiscing on what Ozuah stood for, Omene said the deceased was a jovial person who was almost everybody’s friend.

While condemning the action of the police and their subsequent denial of the crime, he also decried the delay in rushing Ozuah to the hospital.

He said: “Even if they said they did not shoot Ugo, as police officers, the first thing they should have done was to take him to the hospital instead of calling their DPO to come and cover their crime.

“From the time it took me to run back to the estate and get back up, the police could very well have taken him to the hospital, rather they all huddled together cooking up lies to blame armed robbers. Armed robbers did not shoot my friend, but some trigger-happy policemen did. Ugo did not resist arrest neither were we asked to identify ourselves, yet they shot at us and the bullets went right through his chest.”

Ozuah was the only surviving son of his family as he had lost his brother in 2008. According to some of the family members, the loss was as devastating as it could get as they had no other male child.

According to one of Ozuah’s sisters, the tragedy is devastating as they had no idea how to break the news to their aged mother.

With tears trickling down her cheeks, she said Ozuah had become the father figure in the family with the loss of their elder brother and was the one who gave her out in marriage three years ago.

Ozuah’s wife is overwhelmed by the sudden death of her husband and still thought it was a dream.

All efforts to speak to the state Police Public Relations Officer, Ngozi Braide, proved abortive but in her reply to a text message, she declared: “No, it is falsehood! The guy was actually killed by armed robbers in a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV). Not the police please.”