He was a crack detective attached to the Benue State Police Command of the Nigeria Police Force and was reputed for his exploits in smoking out men of the underworld. Criminals were said to shiver at the mention of his name. The late Segment Igbana Denen was a no-nonsense policeman who took his job very seriously.
But his exploits came to an abrupt end penultimate Friday as he was shot dead at about 12.30 am by some gunmen said to have numbered more than 20 near his residence in Tionsha, a suburb of Makurdi, Benue State capital, as he was returning home from office.
The gunmen, according to a community leader and tax collector, Thomas Ayakpam, laid an ambush for him on sighting his Nissan Hilux vehicle and rained bullets on both sides of the back seat, thinking that he sat there.
But Igbana, who was said to be driving himself, jumped down from the vehicle and attempted to escape, but the gunmen shot him in the leg and he managed to get to the front of his house before he collapsed. The gun men closed up with him and shot him several times.
He was rushed by concerned neighbours to the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi, where he died.
The question everybody, including Governor Samuel Ortom, has been asking since his closest security aide was felled by assassins’ bullets is who killed Denen Igbana and what is the motive?
There was a twist to the brutal killing of Igbana during the condolence visit of Governor Ortom to the family and niegbourhood. A tax collector, Thomas Ayakp, while briefing the governor, said before Igbana died, he was shouting the name of a particular man. He said as Igbana was crying and shouting as he ran from his attacker, he was saying: “What have I done that you want to kill me?”
After he resigned from the police force ahead of retirement, the late Igbana had vied for the position of the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of Benue State University (BSU), but lost out as a result of some forces against him. Since he could not go back to the police, he joined the Ortom-Abounu Campaign Organisation 2015 as the security officer. And when Ortom won the governorship election, he was appointed Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Security to the governor and was placed in charge of the state’s amnesty programme in respect of criminals who gave up their arms.
Governor Ortom, while addressing journalists to mark his one year in office, described his late security aide as a hard working man, saying that he was instrumental to the success of the entire amnesty where many dangerous weapons were retrieved from criminals.
Ortom declared that even if it was his own biological son that killed Igbana, he should be arrested and made to face the law. He vowed that those who killed him would be fished out as he had given security agents the matching order to fish them out.
The Nation investigation revealed that few days before he was killed, Igbana had complained to the governor that he was being trailed by some people and pleaded with the governor to help him build a fence around his house. The governor was said to have scheduled an appointment with him against the day he was killed.
Even as SSA to the governor, Igbana was reputed for smoking out kidnappers without a single ransom paid. The governor himself confirmed this at various fora.
Was he killed by a criminal whose case he once handled? Even if that was the case, it is difficult now for security agencies to find out because he is dead.
Another angle security men are said to be exploring is whether any of the ex-bandits who returned their weapons could have felt cheated and took his pound of flesh, since the government has so far spent millions of naira on the amnesty programme through workshops and payment for returned weapons, among others.
The fearless policeman that he was, Igbana was once said to have volunteered being locked in the booth of a car as a ransom to be picked up by kidnappers was being conveyed at a particular location. The kidnappers were shocked when they opened the booth of the car to pick their ransom only to be confronted by Igbana, who promptly arrested them and set the victim free.
The foregoing speculations will remain mere conjectures and his death a mystery until a thorough investigation is conducted and the suspects are arrested.
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