Metro
How caretaker killed 1st year Nekede Poly student over house rent
TopNaija reports that a student of the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Owerri, identified as Anthony Chinweotito Emmanuel, has been allegedly killed by his caretaker over issues surrounding payment of rent.
The incident happened at one of the off-campus hostels called Ezinwanne Lodge on Tuesday but the deceased, a first-year student of the Department of Building Technology, died in a hospital on Saturday night, February 6.
It was gathered that the caretaker whose name could not be ascertained, hit the student with a plank of wood on his stomach.
According to some of the students in the hostel, the caretaker had locked up the water supply because some students refused to pay the full house rent.
However, the students who argued that they did not live in the hostel between March 2020 and January 2021 following the Covid-19 lockdown, later opened the tap and fetch water.
When the caretaker came back and saw the tap opened, he used a saw and cut open the water pipe. This led to an argument during which he allegedly picked up a plank of wood and hit the deceased.
The caretaker was said to have run away after the incident, leaving Anthony in the pool of his blood.
Fellow students rushed Anthony to the nearby hospital but he was rejected. He was later taken to the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri where he died on Saturday.
A divisional police officer in charge of Nekede Police Station who confirmed the incident to The Nation said the caretaker is in police custody and the case would be handed over to the State CID on Monday, for further investigation.
A student from the lodge who pleaded not to mention his name said: “In this our Ezinwanne lodge, our caretaker has been preventing us from seeing the landlord even when we ask for the landlords phone number he will give us fake phone numbers and it has been very difficult to connect the number sometime it will to another person.
“We pleaded for the landlords phone number, so that we can reach out to the owner of the owner of the house so that we can explain our plights for him to accept us especially the graduating students to pay half payment and that by April all of us will go.”
“On the 2 February, 2021, after our meeting with the caretaker, he gave us quit notice that since we can’t pay full payment that all of us should pack out from the lodge, he did not stop at that, he disconnected our light, including water.
“So, the students reconnected the water back at least to use it take their bath and go to exam while others use the water to wash their cloths.
“When the caretaker came back and saw that students have pumped water, he got angry and used sword to cut the pipes linking water into the buildings, as he was doing it students pleaded with him to stop but he got angry and started fighting the students, beating them.”
“It was in that process that the caretaker accused Chinweotito of stealing his phone and immediately used a heavy wood and landed it on the neck of Chinweotito, and the boy fell down and entered into coma. Chinweotito was in coma, from that Tuesday to Saturday, when he died.”
Reacting, the President of the Student Union Government, SUG, Ezeh Chukwuebuka, who confirmed the incident said: “We are prepared to seal up Ezinwanne lodge because we are not happy the story of how Chinweotito died, we are closing down the Ezinwanne lodge on Monday.
