GOVERNOR Willie Obiano of Anambra State has appealed to Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government Federation, SGF, to use his good offices to get the South African police authorities to take steps to unravel the murder of a Nigerian corporate executive in Johannesburg, Elizabeth Obianuju Ndubuisi-Chukwu in June.

Ndubuisi-Chukwu, Deputy Director-General, Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, CIIN was found dead in her room at Emperor Palace Hotel on June 13.

She was attending a meeting of the African Insurance Organisation in the South African commercial capital.

In a letter to Mustapha, which was released on July 7 in Awka, Anambra State, the governor noted that it has become necessary to request the SGF to personally wade into the killing because the police in Johannesburg might be capitalising on the absence of a foreign minister in Nigeria to treat the case with levity.

The governor said that reports he received on the death of the 53-year old indigene of Anambra State “and my analysis of the reports suggest that the South African police are treating this murder as just another Nigerian death in their country’’.

Emperor Palace Hotel explained at the weekend that it had yet to release the CCTV footage to the police because they had yet to request for it.

“It is disheartening that over three weeks after the dastardly act, the South African police have not deemed it necessary to investigate the heinous crime with the seriousness it deserves,’’ Obiano observed.

“Ndubuisi-Chukwu was not an ordinary person, but a top corporate executive, who was billed to become early next year the chief executive of her organization and was representing Nigeria at the meeting in Johannesburg where she met her untimely death’’.

The South African Department of Home Affairs had in an autopsy report stated that Ndubuisi-Chukwu was strangulated, contradicting some earlier reports suggesting that she might have died in her sleep or committed suicide.

The governor argued in the letter to the Federal Government that a “painstaking investigation by the South African police should be able to unearth easily the person or persons, who entered her room after she had joined her colleagues attending the African Insurance Conference in the farewell dinner on June 12.

“The job has been made easier now because Emperor Palace Hotel has agreed to release the CCTV footage to them.’’

Ndubuisi-Chukwu’s death has been the subject of intense media scrutiny, with the governor vowing not to relent in seeking justice for any Anambra indigene “whose life is wasted anywhere, whether in Nigeria or abroad’’.

“The people and government are grateful to the Nigerian human rights community led by Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, the past chairman of the Nigerian Human

Rights Commission, for fighting to ensure that justice is done to the memory of Ndubuisi-Chukwu, a mother of two boys,’’ the governor said.

– July 8, 2019 @ 10:26 GMT |