SURROUNDED by sympathisers at their ECWA Staff Quarters home in Farin Gada on Zaria Road, Jos North Local Council of Plateau State, Mrs Joy Osokogu, mothers of Cynthia Osokogu who was killed in a Lagos hotel room, yesterday spoke of the family’s anguish upon learning of her death.

The huge toll the anxiety and uncertainty, and then the feeling of loss of a much-loved only daughter, was plain to see in Mrs. Osokogu’s demeanor.

Her husband, Frank Osokogu, a retired Major General in the Nigerian Army, was somewhere in the inner rooms.

What could have been going through his mind would not be difficult to imagine. Distraught, he declined to speak to journalists till today, Friday.

But Mrs. Osokogu spoke to The Guardian about her last telephone conversation with her late daughter and what the family has learnt about the tragedy.

Her words: “On July 22, my daughter Cynthia called me and said that she had arrived Lagos. She was a student of Nasarawa State University in Keffi. She owned a boutique, which she opened when she was a third year undergraduate.

“They usually brought her goods imported from the United States, but that fateful July 22, she told me that they were bringing her goods from England.

“She said this time, she wanted to buy English goods to add to her other goods. She told me that since school would be resuming the next day, she would take the next flight to Jos to see me.

“As she did not arrive as she promised and we did not hear from her, we raised alarm and declared her missing.

“Then on Monday, August 20, they said we should come to Lagos and that they cannot disclose anything unless we come.

“It was when my son got to Lagos and they took him to the mortuary that they saw her corpse. I don’t know anything that happened again after that.”

The suspects in Cynthia’s death, Mrs. Osokogu said, told her daughter when they received her at the airport at the Lagos that her goods were in the hotel room and that they wanted to show her there.

“When they got there, they now strangled her to death, tied her mouth and everything. That was all,” she wailed.

The Osokogu family, by Ndubueze

BEFORE going to the Osokogu family at their ECWA Staff Quarters, Farin Gada home on Zaria Road, Jos North Local Council of Plateau State, Col. Emma Ndubueze (rtd) had told The Guardian that Maj.-Gen. Frank Osokogu (rtd) was his colleague.

He said they had worked together in 1993 and 1994 at the 3 Armoured Division, Maxwell Khobe Cantonment, Rukubu Barracks, Jos.

Ndubueze explained that at that time, both of them were staff officers as Lieutenant Colonels and from there, they were posted out on various assignments.

He said that Osokogu eventually retired as a Maj.-Gen. after which he was still very much in touch with the General’s family in a relationship the Colonel he described as ‘very cordial’.

He told The Guardian  he knew Cynthia, adding that General Osokogu had three children, two boys and  the late Cynthia.

One of the boys , according to him, is an officer in the Air Force while Cynthia was the only daughter and the last of the children.

He said the family was fond of Cynthia who was doing her Post-Graduate Studies at the Nasarawa State University, Keffi, when the tragic incident happened.

She had made contact with some people on Facebook and they agreed to meet in Lagos where the criminals drugged and killed her, thinking  she had a lot of money with her.

Posted by admin on Aug 23 2012. Filed under Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry