Obiano petitions South African High Commissioner over murder of Nigeria’s Obianuju Chukwu

ANAMBRA State governor, Chief Willie Obiano has petitioned the South African High Commissioner to Nigeria on the murder of the deputy director general of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, CIIN, Mrs. Elizabeth Ndubuisi-Chukwu in a hotel room in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Chukwu was attending an international conference in South Africa at the time of the incident and her body had since been brought home and would be buried in her home town, Ihiala, Anambra State on July 25, 2019.

In the petition, Obiano said the people of Anambra State had been thrown into deep mourning over the dastardly death of Ndubuisi-Chukwu in her room at Emperor’s Palace Hotel and Conference Centre, Johannesburg, on June 13, 2019, while attending a meeting of the African Insurance Organization.

The governor’s petition read: “The fact that Mrs. Ndubuisi-Chukwu was a representative of the Nigerian nation in an international conference gives so much gravitas to the case. It needs to be tackled urgently at the highest level, which I sincerely believe you can duly facilitate.  What is more, I cannot keep quite when the life of a distinguished Anambra State person is wasted brutally. We must get to the roots, no matter the cost.

“Unraveling the circumstances of the heinous murder is a clear and present need which the South African Government needs to undertake with requisite thoroughness and transparency. The issue has attracted so much publicity in the world media, and I feel compelled to call on you to use your good offices to do the right thing by getting the South African police authorities to wade into the killing.

“Though Nigeria has yet to appoint a substantive foreign minister, bilateral relations between our two countries ought to ensure that the case is not treated with levity as it now appears to be. The loss of a highly talented professional such as Mrs. Ndubuisi-Chukwu challenges us all to call on the reserves of our cherished African brotherhood to make sure that justice is done.

“It is so depressing that at 53 years of age, the departed distinguished indigene of my State was poised on much higher achievement before her tragic death. The least that can be done for her now is to prove that she did not die in vain by probing effectively her killing and getting the killers to face justice.

“The CCTV footage in Emperor’s Palace Hotel where she was strangled will go a long way to lead to a closure on this matter.  Any further delay in solving it all cannot be countenanced.