15th February, 2022
By Jethro Ibileke
Activities at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) were disrupted for several hours on Tuesday morning, following a peaceful protest by members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), over the killing of their member, Dr. Otote Osaikhuomwan.
The peaceful protest disrupted all activities at the ever busy tertiary health institution for several hours.
The 36-year-old Osaikhuomwan of the Department of Ophthalmology, was reportedly killed in the presence of his pregnant wife, in the early hours of Monday, inside their apartment in the Ugbor, GRA area of Benin City.
The allegedly went straight into the deceased’s apartment and shot him in the chest area before going away with some items.
President of the ARD, Dr. Elamah Ikpemimoghena who broke down in tears, noted that insecurity has been one of the reasons responsible for brain drain in the health sector.
He said: “This is a very unfortunate incident, it came to us as a rude shock and it boils down to the general insecurity in the state and in the country at large. Something that we have always complained about, something that has made a lot of our colleagues reconsider their stance in working in Nigeria.
“Insecurity is gaining a very scary trend and that has led to a lot of brain drain, a lot of our members have left the country just because of insecurity.
“Somebody that we know cannot hurt a fly, we don’t know why this happened to him but we hope that God will grant the family, the department and everyone here in UBTH and NARD the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.”
Ikpemimoghena called on the relevant authorities to ensure that they bring the perpetrators to book and give justice to our friend, our brother, a hardworking, calm fellow.
On his part, the spokesperson of ARD, UBTH, Dr. Era Eugene, urged security agencies not to ignore the possibility of assassination in their investigation.
According to him, “What is of particular concern to us in respect of this incident is we are concerned about the nature of the incident, information available to us suggest that his apartment was the only apartment robbed in the compound and why it is worrisome is, it looked more like a targeted attack. We are having concerns about that and it is our opinion that the security operatives rise up to the occasion.”
Edo Police Command Public Relations Officer, SP Kontongs Bello, confirmed the murder.
He added that preliminary investigation into the incident has been commenced by the Division where the it occurred and would transfer their findings to the State Command.