…As wife fumes over delayed justice
By Louis Achi
Dr. Uyi Iluobe
The Delta State Police Command has said the killers of the Chief Medical Director, Olivet Clinic, Oghara, Dr. Uyi Iluobe will be paraded once investigation is concluded.
This is even as the grieving wife of the doctor, Dr. Blessing Iluobe has decried the delay in expending justice for her late husband, who was violently murdered in his private clinic in December.
In an exclusive interview with The Africa Health Report, the Public Relations Officer, Delta State Police Command, DSP. Bright Edafe said progress has been made on the case and that Nigerians will be updated soon.
He said: “There are no further updates yet. We are still investigating. We don’t want to disclose what we have found out until we are ready to parade those who were involved. I can assure you that we are progressing.”
Dr. Iluobe was murdered in his hospital’s consulting room on December 29 last year while attending to his killers who disguised as patients.
When The Africa Health Report reached out to Dr. Blessing, also a medical doctor working at the same facility, she said since his murder, there has been no update from the police besides saying that investigation was ongoing. She also said she has had no updates from the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), the body that caters to the interest of medical doctors in Nigeria, which herself and her late husband are affiliate members. It has been 34 days since the violent incident.
Dr. Blessing said: “Nothing has happened. I have not had any update from the police. They keep saying they are still working on it. No talk of culprits being arrested. I have not heard from the NMA either. No updates. What can we do? We are just keeping on and hoping. We are relying on the grace of God.”
Giving details of the incident, she said when he was shot and left for dead, she ran towards him, knelt on the floor and gently cradled his head, adding that he was bleeding heavily from fatal gunshot wounds. “Just before 8 pm on December 29, 2022, I witnessed him draw his last breadth,” she said tearfully.
“At about 7pm on that faithful day, he had come back from a church evening service and went straight to the hospital to attend to patients. Upon meeting the patient in his consulting room, we heard gunshots. I thought it was a ‘knock-out’ explosion because it was a festive period. Then, there was a second shot. I thought it simply couldn’t be possible that this was a ‘knock-out’ so I went to find out. We live in the hospital premises. When I was about entering the hospital ward, I heard a third shot.
“As I got inside, I saw nurses outside shouting, and I asked them what happened. They were shouting that the doctor is on the floor. I asked which doctor. My sister-in-law was with me. We went into his consulting room together, and I saw him on the floor. He couldn’t even speak to us. I actually witnessed him take his last breath. It was unbelievable. The patient had apparently disappeared,” she said.
Dr. Iluobe’s violent death sparked uproar and conspiracy theories across the state, with NMA threatening to embark on a protest action.
While the NMA and the families of Dr. Iluobe believe he was killed by relatives of a gunshot wound patient whom the late doctor had told he would require a police report after treatment but eventually left the hospital as he was not ready to comply, the Delta State Police Command says he may have been killed by cultists. Edafe had earlier tweeted that: “The rumor making rounds that he (medical doctor) was murdered by the family of the patient who died in the hospital is false.”
On the heels of an order by the Commissioner of Police, Delta State Command, CP Ari Muhammed, on Tuesday, January 2, the Command met with members of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Delta State Chapter, in Asaba.
But in its reaction, the Delta State chapter of NMA had rejected what it called “hasty report” pushed out on Tuesday January 2, 2023, by the Delta State Police Command on the murder of Dr. Iluobe by unidentified assailants.
But DSP Edafe told Africahealthreport.com earlier that there was no friction with NMA. According to him, “There was actually no friction with the NMA. It is the media that is creating impressions of friction when there is none. The allegation that cultists were involved is baseless. It was when the incident happened, and some people were saying that when a patient died, the family members came and shot the doctor. I just wanted to debunk that. That was when I said the killers may have been suspected cultists.
“The rumour making the rounds that the doctor was murdered by family of the patient who died in the hospital is wrong. There is no record of any patient’s death in the hospital. However, we are investigating to unravel the reason he was murdered and also arrest the suspects. We have not arrested anybody. The NMA exco has visited us twice and waiting for the more substantive report to be presented. The resident doctors have visited also.”
Meanwhile, all the affected families, stakeholders, the medical community and Delta State at large hold bated breath as all eyes focus on the police for answers that will end the apparent mystery and bring closure to the bereaved.
