Mother of four laments husband’s death in Police gun duel with bandits
If tears that dropped from one’s eyes could restore the dead to life, then Mrs. Hope Olunwa Ani had shed enough of it to bring back her husband from the jaws of death.
Although it is more than two weeks since her husband, Pastor Benjamin Ani, was violently cut down, the mother of four has been unable to come to terms with the circumstances of his death.
In their Umuonu/Udeji -Amaechi country home in Enugu South council, where she lived with her husband, since their marriage ten years ago, Mrs. Hope relishes in tears as if it is a hobby.
That is probably because; she had spoken with him five minutes before the incident. It eventually turned out to be the last communication she would ever have with him as he had run into crossfire shortly between the Police and some unknown gunmen at the Amaechi/Obeagu Police checkpoint on the evening of July 20 that took his life.
Benjamin, a Pastor at the Omega Power Ministry (OPM), Enugu and a Refrigerator repairer, had attended a church programme at a neighbouring community in Nkerefi in Nkanu East council.
At the end of the programme, he was accompanied in his car by another Pastor of the church, Chidiebere Nnamani and both men headed home. They never got home before they were felled by bullets in the unfortunate encounter.