ABIA CIVIL SERVANT COMMITS SUICIDE FOR NON-PAYMENT OF HIS SALARY
A civil servant in Abia State on Sunday hung himself over alleged non-payment of his salary.
The victim, identified as Dee Nwankwo, 52, until the sad incident, was a member of staff of the state’s Ministry of Lands and Survey.
His lifeless body was found dangling in his sitting room on Sunday afternoon after his family members returned from a church service.
According to a family source, the widow of the deceased and his three children had gone to church but he stayed back in the house, unknown to them that he was planning to take his life.
The source said that when the family members returned to the house, they were confronted with Nwankwo’s lifeless body with a rope tied to the ceiling fan.
According to the source, the deceased left behind a note where he gave reasons for his action.
The source said: “The man said that he could no longer cope with the frustrations associated with months of unpaid salaries as he could no longer meet up with his responsibilities to the family.”
He added that the suicide note was handed over to the police when they came to pick up Nwankwo’s corpse which was deposited in the mortuary.
Another source told the news men that the man’s problems must have been compounded by his inability to provide for his family in recent times.
The source said that the late Nwankwo had on Saturday begged him for rice for the family but he could not assist him because he had exhausted his.
The source said that “the shame of not meeting the basic needs of his family must have led him into this sad end.”
The Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Udeviotu Onyeke, said that he was yet to be briefed by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Ehimiri on the incident.
Meanwhile, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has described the incident as “very unfortunate.”
Through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Godwin Adindu, the governor said that he was yet to get the report of the incident but added that it would be investigated to establish the real cause of it.
He told our reporter that when he “is properly briefed about the incident,” he would order an investigation to ascertain if it had anything to do with salary arrears.
Also yesterday, men of the Lagos State police command arrested one Lekan Shonde for allegedly killing his wife, Ronke Bewaji Shonde, last Thursday in their home in Egbeda area of the state.
The Lagos State Command Police Public Relations Officer, Dolapo Badmus, said Shonde was arrested by the men of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS).
Shonde has been on the run since he killed his wife.
Badmus said that the suspect was traced through his phone lines, adding that the case had been transferred to the homicide section of the State Criminal Investigations Department.
According to Shonde, he beat his wife because he caught her in a phone conversation with her lover. He claimed that he heard the wife telling her man that she enjoyed him last night, “which got me infuriated and I pushed her after which I walked out of the house, not knowing that she was dead.”
Ronke was found dead by the nanny in the couple’s house with blood stains on her forehead.