On this day: in history (2002), Barnabas Igwe, chairman of Nigeria Bar Association Onitsha Branch, Anambra State, and his pregnant wife were brutally murdered by a group of armed men as they returned from an evening outing.
Barnabas Igwe and his pregnant wife were dragged out of their car and dealt several machete blows before being shot. Their assailants deliberately drove over their bodies before disappearing from the scene.
The deceased lawyer had been very critical of Mbadinuju’s government over the arrears of salaries owed the state workers, and for operating the anti-crime vigilante outfit known as the Bakassi Boys.The NBA in Onitsha, the biggest and most active NBA branch in Anambra State as at then, had just issued a 21-day ultimatum to the state government to pay backlog of salaries owed judiciary workers, the state legislature staff, teachers and civil servants or face the consequences.
In the year leading up to the attack on the Igwes, Anambra had become the most gravely mismanaged of Nigeria’s 36 states. Unpaid teachers were on strike for the full school year. All state civil servants and court workers have been on strike for many months. The state’s bar association accused state leaders of pocketing the money meant to pay the striking workers and, just before Barnabas Igwe was killed, demanded that the governor resign.
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Created by Okey Obiabunmo
