Nnewi, Anambra State, the sudden disappearance of their noble son 10 years ago still remains a mystery.
•Prof Johnie Onyeka, missing for 10 years and Madam Eunice Onyeka, Johnie’s mum
For them, if there is any thing they could do to get a clue of his whereabouts, they would have done it at all costs but to intensify the search for him, the family has announced the placement of N5 million handsome reward for any informant who has a clues to his whereabout.
As for his 90-year old mother, Mrs. Eunice Onyeka, life is still full of anxiety and unending expectations. If not for her unshakable Christian backgrou-nd, the nonagerian mother of seven would have waved goodbye to all the worries of this earth going by what she has passed through in the last 10 years since her first son, John disappeared mysteriously, precisely on August 18, 2006.
Born in 1948, Johnie was the first son of Godson and Eunice Onyeka from Inyaba village, Umudim, Nnewi, but he lived most of his productive years in the university town of Nsukka.
He went to school partly at Nsukka and London for his junior fellowship and also lectured briefly at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN before transferring his services to University of Jos, UNIJOS where he rose to the rank of Deputy Vice Chancellor, DVC (Academic).
He got married to Ethel Ada Onyeka nee Anazodo and they had three children. As at the time he went missing on August 18, 2006, he lived alone in Jos with a cook while his wife, Ethel and their only daughter, Uju lived in Abuja. His two sons were in the university but lived off campus.
According to family sources, Prof. Johnie was billed to travel to Makurdi on Saturday, August 19, 2006 with his friend now, a top shot in the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, Abuja, supposedly to collect money for some contract job they executed with the Benue State University.
Service of songs
But he was last seen on the evening of Friday, August 18, 2006 during a service of songs in honour of the wife of a staff of Unijos which he attended till the end of the service at about 9pm when he was said to have left for home.
From the next morning, August 19, 2006 when he supposedly travelled to Makurdi for the business trip till date, both his family members, the UNIJOS authorities or friends and associates could no longer trace his whereabout.
His aged mother, Eunice is lamenting that Ethel and her children teamed up and are seeking the arrest of Okonobi, her husband’s brother for what they termed the criminal selling of Johnie’s property and non accountability of rents collected from the properties by Okonobi and his other brothers.
In other words, the aged Mama Eunice is not only crying that her first son, Johnie is missing but that Johnie’s wife and children are in a supremacy battle with Johnie’s brothers over his properties.
In an encounter with S’East Voice, Mama Eunice who spoke as a woman of faith, expressed the hope that her son will eventually return home one day before her death to shame the devil and also straighten all sorts of negative noises generated in the family presently.
According to her, “With signs of age telling on me, I sometimes stare into space in anticipation that one day, my child will return home while I am still alive because I know the pains of childbirth and pains of loosing such a child in mysterious circumstance.
“Johnie Onyeka is my son. I bore him in Nsukka and raised him therein. Ethel is his wife though it was his father that first made the move for her marriage. It got to a stage that my spirit began to talk to me that all is not well. That was when they started telling me that my son was missing. Even till now, I’m yet to come to the reality of the situation but I know that the fellow wives married into the family sent mess
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