‘They gave us another corpse for our son’

His bewildered wife, Edna, 20, is yet to come to terms with the reality that her husband is gone forever and would never again return to her warm embrace after only one year of the love they shared together as a couple.“He was everything to me. He was the father I never had. At least, […]

His bewildered wife, Edna, 20, is yet to come to terms with the reality that her husband is gone forever and would never again return to her warm embrace after only one year of the love they shared together as a couple.
“He was everything to me. He was the father I never had. At least, he gave me a home to call my own. He was a very understanding man who showed me what it meant to be loved,” she stated in between sobs.
Edna is not alone dealing with the grief of the man she described as her happiness as her mother-in-law, Mrs. Gloria Abagi, affirmed that the pain of losing her son at the Sambisa forest turned battlefield for security forces and the dreaded insurgents, haunts her every day like an awful blast from the past.
Even though, Mrs. Abagi, a nurse by profession, fought hard to keep tears away, they flowed freely all through the 20 minutes of conversation with our correspondent at the family’s home in Aliade town in Gwer local government area of Benue State.
She told Weekly Trust that the deceased was the second of her three children and was enlisted into the Nigeria Army in September 2011 exactly on his 21st birthday. He was said to have passed out of training in February 2012 as a combatant and was thereafter posted to the 81 Battalion located in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Mrs. Abagi, a widow, said she felt like dying early this year when the late Peter called to inform the family that he was among soldiers drafted to troubled Borno State to quell the insurgency.
She said: “When I got the news, I felt like dying. I cried profusely but there was nothing I could do about it so I prayed fervently for his protection on a daily basis and while he was there we communicated regularly. It was only periods that he went for operations in the bush that we didn’t connect.”
Sadly, the woman recalled that the last chat between them was on April 14 when her daughter-in-law, who relocated from Ibadan to the family home in Aliade due to the prolonged absence of her husband, gave birth to a baby girl.
“He was very excited at the arrival of his baby that night when I broke the news to him. He had so much wished to cuddle his baby, but for distance,” Mrs. Abagi explained.
The excitement was, however, short-lived as all effort to reach her son by telephone the next day for their usual chat failed until the shocking news of his death was announced to the family on Saturday, April 26.
The family was later briefed that their beloved son fell to the enemy’s bullet on Friday, April 25 by his comrade in arms, who asked them to move urgently to claim the corpse or risk it being buried in Maiduguri as is the practice of the military to bury dead personnel at warfronts.
The bereaved wife, Edna recalled that her late husband had spoken with her a day after she had their baby and told her that he was going for another operation, even as he promised to come and see them on his return.
But, that was never to be as the cruel hands of the wicked snuffed life out of him at the battle front, leaving his mother, wife and siblings to endless grief while his daughter would never know the joy of having a father.
Although, Edna was unaware that death was lurking around her husband, she had protested the ill-fated operation so much that she begged him not to go for that particular trip during their last discussion.
“He however, pleaded for my understanding when I tried to discourage
him. He said that there was no way out for him because it was the turn of his team to go for operation as they were been churned out group by group.
“He further persuaded me not to worry but to pray for him. His death was the last thing I ever expected. Now, that he is gone, I don’t know where to start from all over again. Where do I go from here? It is just like the whole world has fallen,” Edna, who is also an orphan lamented.
For the entire family, things had never been the same ever since the demise of Peter, who wanted so much to become an engineer in the future and to make his mother happy by putting smiles on her face for sacrificing so much to raise them up single handedly.
The late soldier had assured his mother not to panic about the future as he would not remain a junior worker but strive hard to achieve his dream of greatness.
“I didn’t know that my son will never be alive for me,” the grieving mother quipped.
And as if the shocking news of the death was not enough, a wrong corpse was brought back home. Mrs. Abagi said the discovery at the General Hospital in Aliade, where the body was deposited, caused her more traumas.
“I had to follow some of my relations to return the wrong corpse back to Maiduguri Teaching Hospital where the bodies were kept and I entered the mortuary to identify my son. His corpse was later released to me and we returned it at a total transport charge of N700, 000 covering our going and coming,” she said.
Late Peter’s mother told Weekly Trust that the army a few days ago, redeemed in cash the cheque of N355, 000 it presented to them shortly after the deceased’s burial at the 81 battalion where he served.
“A promise of another cheque of N250, 000 was verbally made by the authorities of the army in Maiduguri but it had not been given to us neither did we sign any document in that regard,” Mrs. Agbagi added.
In the meantime, the memory of the late man who incidentally did not set his eyes before his demise on his daughter, Nguemo, would continue to linger in the minds of his mother, his beautiful wife, an only sister Martha and his policeman elder brother, Jacob.
For his mother who dreamt that she fought and defeated so many devils just a night before he was killed, if only dreams were to be reality, the emptiness she now feels would never have been.
And as Edna, who was his wife for only one year summed it up: “Life is not a fairy tale. God gave you (Peter) to me and also took you away, what more can I say than to bid you farewell. I will always love you, my dear husband.”