Relatives Wailed And Sobbed As Dead Bodies Were Identified

According to Premium Times, after a long wait and police procedures, on May 9, exactly 41 days after the murders, heartbroken Mbayion people set out for Makurdi, the Benue State capital, to receive the bodies for burial.
Local leaders and the community’s own brightest, including the SAN, Mr. Hon, and retired service men, set out to Makurdi for a trip that would return seven coffins home.
After identification by family members, the wooden caskets were lined outside the morgue at 3.45p.m and set for the journey from Makurdi to Gboko, about 73 kilometres.
Relatives wailed and sobbed. Women cried and wiped their soggy eyes with the tips of their wrappers.

The woman who was shot in the head that day was the only female killed in the attack.

Doose was the only woman killed in the attack. A soldier shot her point blank in the head.
 

Since losing her parents years back, 19-year-old Doose Ornguze, a resident of Tsekucha, near Mbayion, had managed to provide parental cover to her two younger siblings, drawing support from her yam trade, a thriving business in Benue State.
Against all odds, she kept herself and siblings in school and maintained a small house their parents left behind. One of the two siblings, Samuel, was in Port Harcourt when he was told that Doose had been shot and killed.

“My sister suffered so much to provide for me and my younger sister,” he lamented.
After due examination attended by half a dozen pathologists, the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi, confirmed the seven victims died of gunshots.
But its verdict of what happened to Ms. Ornguze turned out most ghastly.
The hospital identified the following as the cause of death: “Blunt force trauma to the left aspect of the skull with comminute skull fracture and extensive brain laceration, bone and brain tissue loss. Caused by a very fast moving object like a bullet shot from a fairly close range”.
The mechanism of death was found to be: “Brain laceration with extensive brain loss”.
Zungwenen Mase, the father of one of the victims said his son, a truck driver, went to the parking bay to retrieve his trailer when a bullet caught him. He said his only demand was for Dangote to leave Gboko.

“My son was innocent. My son didn’t commit any crime. Why Dangote? Why would you kill my son?” Mr. Mase queried.
But it was the sight of a mother, who convulsed and twisted in angst as she watched the coffin of her son brought out of the morgue, that threw the crowd into fits of sobs and tears.
Memshima Nongo is the mother of 20-year-old Lupe Nongo Igber, who was also killed. Mrs. Nongo said her complaint was appropriately laid to the community and she hoped the authorities would act.
“Lupe why have you decided to go now? Who will close my eyes when I die? Please God; don’t allow the death of my innocent child to go unpunished,” she wailed continuously.

Also an indigene of Tsekucha, in Mbayion, Mr. Igber was also unable to complete secondary education. He trained as truck driver, like many who ferry cement from Dangote’s factory. It was a living that supported Mr. Igber, his wife, a child, mother, brothers and sisters.
The first truck driver whose father wanted Dangote out of town, was Timothy Terngu Mase, 21, male. He was an indigene of Tse Shie, Mbagar, Mbayion. As a driver, he served with a private company in Obajana, Kogi State, where Mr. Dangote has another cement plant.
He was home on a visit to his family when the troops invaded his community.
Mr. Mase’s dream was building a truck-driving school in Gboko to enable indigent youths acquire the skill which had made him self-reliant. When the bullets flew in his town, he was hit in the heart.
Myom Mbaume, 25, male, was also killed.

A small scale grower of yam, millet, guinea corn and maize, from Tsekucha, he left behind a wife, two children, a mother and five siblings. His devastating family said they needed nothing but justice for his killers.
In the fourth coffin was Aondoyima Tyokase, 26, male from Tombo, Mbatsaase Tse-Orban in Buruku Local Government Area also of Benue State.
Without an education, he trained as a barber and opened a shop near Dangote Cement factory. Popularly known as Chief Barber, it was Mr. Tyokase who barbed most of the guards at Mr. Dangote’s expansive plant. When troops came calling with their bullets, that familiarity did not help.
Iornenge Anum, 35, male, an indigene of Igber, Tsekucha, was next. He was a carpenter and his workshop was located near the cement factory. Mr. Anum left behind a wife and three daughters, all in primary school.

Then there was Aondoakura Tseeneke, a 36-year-old man and the oldest of those killed. He had three wives and five children. He was an indigene of Tse Hon, Mbawav, Mbayion in Gboko Local Government Area. Mr. Tseeneke sold retailed cooking gas at a shop near Dangote Cement Company. The rampaging soldiers shot him in front of his house, witnesses said.
The University Teaching Hospital confirmed all died of gunshots.

Loaded one atop another on a Dyna mini-truck, the bodies left Makurdi at about 4.00 p.m. for Gboko. After a two-hour drive, the delegation arrived. And one after the other, the community leaders returned the corpses of the slain youth to their families.
As the coffins were offloaded from the truck, wails and cries rented the air. The community leaders advised that each family conduct private burials to keep the tension down. The crowd called for justice.