he promised to give him the money on his return on Saturday. I didn’t know that it would be our last discussion. What a world! As if he knew he was going to die, before he left for his new posting to the bank, he called all his children on Sunday and told them to be good children. His words were full of wisdom. He asked them not to look for trouble. When he was leaving on Monday, we all said goodbye to him without knowing that it was the last time we would see him.
How did you meet?
We met in our village. I told you we came from the same village. We grew up together. He knew me when I was a young girl and from there, he liked me and later proposed marriage to me. We got married in 1999 and even as of that time, I was young. He was not a policeman then. He became a police officer few years after our wedding. He was nice and hard working. Honestly, I miss him. Tears are my companion every night. I have yet to come to terms with his demise.
Would you allow any of your children to join the police considering how their father died?
I wouldn’t stop any of my children who wants to be a police officer. As a matter of fact, our second child, Wisdom, who is 13, always told his father that he wanted to be a cop in future. The choice is entirely that of any child who chooses that. I will only pray for the child not to die untimely like his father.
Do you have any regrets that he was a policeman?
I have no regrets that my husband was a policeman because it was what he loved. I am proud of my late husband as a police officer. My only regret is that he died young without fulfilling his dreams and goals.
What do you want Nigerians to do for his family, especially as many saluted his courage?
I want government and Nigerians to help me support the education of our children and to take care of us. I want them to please do for his kids, the things he would have done for them as a father if he were alive. I am jobless.
What were the things he planned to do which death did not allow him to realise?
He had an uncompleted building project in the village. He was building a bungalow. I am not sure I know where I will take my children to whenever we visit the village. He promised to train them up to the university level. He pledged that he would assist Favour to realise his dream to study medicine. But death didn’t allow him to fulfill any of them.
Where are his parents and how did they receive the news of his death?
My husband’s father is dead and his mother, Mrs. Maria Iboko, is seriously sick, owing to the shock she suffered upon hearing the news of her son’s death. My husband was her second child and the family’s breadwinner. She is almost 80 years old. My mother is currently down with stroke. She could not bear the news. She was fond of my husband.
We are at the mercy of a landlord, he wants his rent. We owe 15-months, rent and that is about N180,000. I want the good people of Nigeria to come to our aid before we are thrown out of the apartment.
