There was a great and bitter mourning in the family of Mr. Okechukwu Akaneme, the former President of the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, forme...
There was a great and bitter mourning in the family of Mr. Okechukwu Akaneme, the former President of the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, former Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Onitsha Federated Chapter, a prominent leader in the Onitsha business community, and a major employer of labour. He died from the injury he sustained when the agents sent by the Anambra state Waste Management Agency broke his spinal cord in October 2024 over a spurious allegation of owing Waste Management debt.
Mr. Akaneme was at his home in Onitsha during the early morning of Friday, October 11, 2024, still in his nightwear, when a team from the Anambra State Waste Management Authority (ASWAMA), led by Joseph Okoye and accompanied by two armed police officers, arrived. They mercilessly assaulted him following an argument over an unpaid ASWAMA levy, leaving him with a broken spinal cord.
In a particularly brutal act, one of the police officers wrapped his hands around Mr. Akaneme’s armpit and locked them behind his neck, causing his bones to crack. After the assault, the officers abandoned him, leaving him lying helplessly on the floor. It was Mr. Akaneme’s neighbours and employees who came to his aid and took him to the Holy Rosary Specialist Hospital and Maternity in Onitsha. From there, he was referred to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH) in Nnewi, where he was transported by ambulance with life support.
But the real tragedy of this whole case is that the govt of Anambra state, led by Prof. Charles Soludo, on whose behalf this atrocious act was carried out, spent an entire month peddling the wicked lie that Mr. Akaneme didn’t sustain any serious injury but was merely pretending to be injured. The head of ASWAMA, who sent his boys on that assignment, Mr. Mike Ifeanyi Ozoemena, said Okey was feigning to be hurt. Even the Commissioner for Environment, Felix Odimegwu, whose ministry oversees ASWAMA and, as such, shares vicarious liability over this dastardly act, did nothing.
NONE OF THOSE WHO KILLED MR AKANEME HAS BEEN PUNISHED. Not the Mr. Joseph Okoye who led the ASWAMA thugs, not the two police officers who broke Okey’s neck and whom the Anambra Police Command has since confirmed acted outside their line of duty, and certainly not any official of the State Ministry of Environment.
The least we owe Okey, and every other innocent victim of such circumstances, is to end Nigeria and let all the nations decide their fate.
Written by Anthony Osborne
For Imo State Media Team
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