Who's the real killer? Antoine Wimes or Sani Abacha
Imagine being an academic and educator possesing two masters degrees. Imagine being a useful and productive member of society. Imagine having to leave that society in search of greener pastures because said society doesn't reward true productivity.
Imagine arriving in a strange land where your skin color is already a liability and your foreign accent compunds matters by further separating you from your own kind. Imagine now having to take on part-time menial jobs to survive and care for your wife who is sufffering from kidney related problems.
Now imagine all of this ending in a burst of gunfire because some punk kid decides that your life is the obstacle to him getting a $5 tshirt! WTH?
This is the sad story of Etus Obi Onyemaechi, a 48year old Nigerian living in the US. The Late Mr Onyemaechi is said to have worked as an educator in Nigeria before he left 12years ago for the US. His killer, who was arrested recently, is 17year old boy.
What really pains me about this story, even more than the fact that his ill wife has to cope wiith so undeserved a loss, is that if Nigeria had gotten its act together the man wouldn't be dead.
He left for the US 12years ago.
12 years ago means he left Nigeria sometime in 1997 during Abacha's regime or just after it ended in the laps of Indian prostitutes. 12years ago means he left just before things had a chance to change with the coming of democracy. 12years ago means he left when professors where being paid N25,000 a month and strikes where a monthly affair.
I guess the question we should be asking ourselves in this day of Nigerians being shot in american stores, or stabbed on british streets, or executed in various asian prisons, or robbed and left to die in the sahara is: have things changed since then?
If not, then Mr Onyemaechi's death is just more blood on the hands of our leaders past - especially those who ruled by the gun.
1 comment:
Here is an update on Antoine Wimes. Look on ajc.com. The punk you mentioned, although being held for the murder in February, was somehow released on bond and given an ankle bracelet. He broke it off his ankle, and then he forced entry into a home and shot a woman and beat her one year old son almost to death. They are both in critical condition, and he is on the loose. Meanwhile, her family is in severe anguish. How does a kid like this get out of jail?
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