Enemy at the door: I watched in horror as cultists killed my six-year-old boy — Bereaved mother

                  

                                     Deborah Bernard…Emma, you have killed my son

Little Samson Bernard had his life cut down by bullets from suspected cultists in the North Bank area of Makurdi, Benue State capital.

The six-year-old met his death in a rather bizarre and painful  manner in the hands of armed gang of young Nigerians parading the streets of major towns of Benue. The gang sometimes engage in bloody conflicts to gain supremacy.

Their last exchange was at Udei Street, North Bank, and, instead of killing their kind in their demented gun duel, they snuffed life out of the kid while eating breakfast of bean cake, in front of number 13, the only home he knew.

Samsom was the fourth child in a family of seven.

 His mother, a bean cake hawker, Mrs. Deborah Bernard , fought back tears as she narrated how her little boy was gunned down in her presence.

According to her, she had just prepared bean cake, that morning, and served her seven children. They had barely started eating when she heard sound of gun shots.

“Samson was sitting and eating his own share of the food at the entrance of our home while I continued to attend to customers who came to buy ‘moin moin’, bean cake, from me”, the bereaved mother narrated.

“My son and the other children were yet to finished eating the breakfast when I heard the sound of gun shots from across our street, directly opposite our house.

“People started running. I immediately jumped up from where I was sitting and shouted to my children to move into the room. I was also trying to run into the house for safety.

“Seconds later, my son (Samson) started calling me, saying ‘mama’ with blood dripping from his mouth. It was then I realized that he had been hit by bullet and was bleeding profusely from the mouth.

“At that point, I looked across the road at one of the boys who was involved in the incident that led to the shooting, and who is also our neighbour. I started wailing, ‘Emma, you have killed my son, you have killed by son’; he then fled.

“Neigbours who saw what happened ran to my help. My son was already soaked in his own blood. They took him from me and tried to stop him from bleeding further.

“They invited the police and we rushed him to the General Hospital in North Bank. On reaching there, with the help of the police,  doctors on duty  tried to save him but later certified that he was dead.”

Corroborating the story of his wife, the father of the boy, Mr. Bernard Akpa, a carpenter in the area, said he was at his work place when he received a call from his wife that their son had been shot by some cult boys in the area.

“When I received the call that my son has been shot by cult boys, that is what they call themselves in this area, I was confused and couldn’t put myself together. I left what I was doing and dashed back home,” he said.

“On reaching the house, they had already taken Samson to hospital. I rushed to the hospital where i was told the boy was dead. The police wanted us to keep his remains but I refused because doing so would further aggravate my pains. So I asked that the boy be buried.

“My pain is that the life of my innocent son  was cut short by a gang of trigger happy boys who boast around that they are cult boys and seem to be above the law.

“I’m only asking for justice. My son cannot be murdered in cold blood and government will not take steps to make his murderers pay for their heinous action.

“We are helpless; we cannot take the law into our hands despite the anguish this unfortunate incident has brought on my entire family.

“The blood of that small innocent boy will certainly cry for justice. Security agencies and government must ensure that he did not die in vain.”

An eyewitness, who craved anonymity, also gave account of what happened. He said, “The unfortunate incident happened at about 10am. We were trying to settle down for the day’s business when we heard sound of gunshots from within Udei Street.

“Initially, nobody understood what was happening; there was so much confusion in the street and the adjoining neighbourhood. Everyone scampered to safety.

“Amid the confusion, we noticed that some young men were running from the area where the gunshots were fired while another group zoomed away on motorbike.

“They were said to be cult members: what we heard later was that two suspected cult members on motorbike had stormed the area and opened fire on members of a rival cult group.

“But moments after the shooting, there were shouts from Mrs. Deborah Bernard,  the woman who sells ‘moin moin’ in the neighbourhood and whose husband, Bernard Akpa, is a  carpenter.

“She was carrying her blood soaked five-year-old son who had been sitting in front of their house when he was  hit by stray bullet from the feuding cultists.”

He also revealed how residents of the area had lived in fear as if they were  in a lawless society due to the activities of cult groups that freely operate in the area.

“We are always terrorized in this niegbourhood, almost on a daily basis. Arms wielding cult youngsters subject us to living in fear as if they run the entire state; that is the helpless condition we have found ourselves”, the eye witness said.

When contacted, the Benue State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Superintendent ( SP) Daniel Ezeala, confirmed the killing.

Ezeala said the command had commenced investigations into the matter, assuring that all those involved would not escape the long arms of the law.