Death-for-preaching: Mother rejects N5m after C’River police killed son

Mrs. Mba

Victoria Mba, the mother of 22-year-old Moses Mba, who was reportedly beaten and shot by policemen attached to a residence of the Cross River State Governor, Bassey Otu, in Calabar, has rejected the N5m offered to her family by the government.

She said no amount of money would silence her demand for justice.

Speaking with Sunday PUNCH, Mba claimed that some government representatives, who visited her home on Thursday, offered the family N5m.

“They brought N5m. We rejected it. Is the value of my son’s life N5m? They said it was a condolence visit, but I don’t know where condolence is done with money in that way. I want justice, not money,” she said.

Moses, the first son of the family, was shot on August 1.

According to his mother, the victim had claimed he was going to preach to the governor when he was accosted by security personnel.

“Is it a crime if somebody goes to a gate? They could have sent him away or kept him somewhere until they reached his parents.

“Instead, they beat him and shot him in the leg. That’s how they ended my son’s life,” she added.

Sunday PUNCH gathered that while Moses was in the hospital for eight days, plainclothes security operatives were stationed in his ward until he died.

Mba said her family insisted on an autopsy to determine whether her son died solely from gunshot wounds or from assault.

“The Assistant Commissioner of Police told me we should wait for an autopsy. I said fine, but I don’t trust their doctors. I can’t even watch them touch my son’s body. I just want the truth.

“They think we are stupid. They think they can silence me with money. My son was my first child, my pride, the one his siblings looked up to. He called me ‘mother’ first. They have taken him away and tried to cover it up. I will not be silenced,” she said.