From Simeon Nwakaudu, Makurdi

Angry Naval Rating allegedly beats carpenter to death over unfinished cupboard

THERE is no thawing yet in the frosty relationship between officers and ratings of the Nigerian Navy and their civilian host communities in Benue State. Rather, it is getting colder.


The carpenter gets nailed , into a coffin

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It has been a cat-and-mouse kind of existence - the Naval personnel being the cats while the civilians around them are the mice. The relationship is dogged by one incident after another, of civilians being harassed, intimidated, beaten up, maimed so much so that members of the public are beginning to question loudly enough what the Navy are doing in the state.

The physical assaults have become so common they hardly make news anymore.

But one incident, last year, was an exception when a Makurdi-based businessman was abducted by Naval personnel at a restaurant in town and dragged to the Naval Base where he was beaten to an inch of his life and stabbed in the lap.

His wrist was slit and would have been killed, had another Naval officer not pleaded that the life of the businessman be spared.

There was public outcry as people from all walks of life urged that the culprits be brought to justice.

If anyone thought that the furore that the uprising that incident almost caused would teach the Naval personnel any lesson, then, such a person was wrong, as was proved by the event on Monday evening at Wurukum, a suburb of Makurdi.

That Monday, a popular carpenter in the area known as Philip Udoh, from Konshisha Local Council of Benue State, was beaten to death by a Naval rating named, Charles Gbodi.

The carpenter was killed for failing to deliver on a promise to complete Gbodi's kitchen furniture on schedule after collecting a payment of N5,000.

The kitchen furniture is like a cupboard used by residents for cooking in front of their rooms in compounds that they share with other people.

It is meant to keep the user away from the general kitchen in compounds where they live.

Trouble started on Monday evening after the Naval rating had gone to the home of the carpenter to collect his cupboard and was told that it was not ready.

The late Udoh had started the construction and had done considerable work on the item, but had not completed it as he was said to have gone to the seminary in the town for another job.

An irate Charles Gbodi could not accept the explanations and pleas that only a little remained to be done on his cupboard.

He attacked Udoh in the presence of his family members, beating him mercilessly and was unmoved by the pleadings of people around.

A furious Naval Rating Gbodi was said to have grabbed an object and smashed the head of Philip Udoh, who fell to the ground, unconscious.

It was at this point that Gbodi, a frequent to the area, fled the scene and reported himself to the B Division of the Benue State Police Command.

Udoh was confirmed dead at the Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, where sympathisers rushed him to.

For now, Naval Rating Charles Gbodi has been transferred to the Benue State Police Command Headquarters while further investigations go on.

Contacted, the Benue State Police Public Relations Officer, Alaribe Ejike said that he was yet to receive details on the incident and that the Command would brief reporters on the matter as soon as information was received from the State Criminal Investigation Department.

Residents of the area who witnessed the killing were shocked that the Naval Rating refused to heed the pleading of the people to stop beating the carpenter.

A local traditional ruler in the area who witnessed the killing, Zaki Agishi, claimed that several persons attempted to intervene, but Charles Gbodi threatened them with bodily harm, hence they stayed at a safe distance and watched him beat the carpenter to death.

Speaking to The Guardian, Agishi said he was called by distressed residents from his home and had to rush to the scene, hoping that the Naval Rating would respect his age and stop the beating.

He said when he got to the scene; the late Udoh was already in a pool of his own blood and was begging the Gbodi for his life.

He said: "I noticed that the situation was getting critical and I took the risk to approach the Naval Rating. I told him to stop the beating; otherwise he would kill the boy. He did not heed my pleas and continued until the boy died."

Another eye-witness, Hilary Karem, stated that ordinarily, residents would have saved the carpenter, but because they knew Charles Gbodi as a Naval Rating and did not want to fall prey to him and his colleagues after the incident.

He said it was common for Naval Ratings in the area to return, at a later date, to beat up those who had attempted to intervene in altercations that they had with their victims.

He said it was out of fear that they called the local chief to intervene, believing that the Naval Rating would respect his age.

Karem said: "For Now, Udoh is dead. But the law enforcement agents should ensure that Gbodi is brought to justice so as to discourage other Naval Ratings from beating ordinary, harmless and usually innocent civilians whenever they have issues with residents".

He called on the Federal Government and the Naval authorities to build a barracks for the Naval personnel in Makurdi to avoid the harm they cause to residents since they opened a base in the town.

He claimed that several residents had received different degrees of injuries from Naval personnel in the last one-year, but had been intimidated to remain silent.

He said Udoh's case was heard far and wide because he died at the hands of his assailant.

In February, a mobile policeman also shot and killed one Aondowase Angu after an altercation. Nothing has been heard about the case after the police quelled the uprising that ensued.