‘Jesus, Jesus!’ — Somtochukwu Maduagwu’s final cry

By Luminous Jannamike, Abuja

IT was 12:46 p.m. connected Thursday astatine Unique Apartments, Plot 1758 Ularamu Medugu Crescent, Katampe, Abuja; the upscale residential estate wherever Somtochukwu Christelle Maduagwu erstwhile lived earlier her beingness was tragically chopped short.

Read Also: Death of Arise TV anchor: Somtochukwu jumped from 3rd floor—FCT Police boss

The neighbourhood looked calm, its bare streets baking nether the Abuja sun. Yet lone days earlier, these aforesaid walls had echoed with the hopeless outcry of a young pistillate facing her last moments.

‘Jesus, Jesus!’ she shouted into the night. Neighbours and operation workers heard her voice. Some accidental the echo inactive lingers. Moments later, soundlessness fell. That was the past outcry of 29-year-old Somtochukwu earlier she fell from the 3rd level of her flat successful a hopeless bid to flight a set of equipped robbers.

A Night That Changed Everything

Unique Apartments is simply a modern improvement tucked adjacent to Maitama and Ministers’ Hill. By day, the neighbourhood hums with activity; hundreds of labourers mixing cement, hammers striking, machines buzzing.

By night, however, it falls astir silent. Only a fistful of tenants inhabit the fewer completed properties successful this fast-developing area, portion the rest, astir 80 per cent of the buildings, inactive astatine assorted stages of construction, basal successful eerie quiet, waiting for residents.

On the nighttime of 30 September, that soundlessness was shattered. Between 14 and 15 equipped men forced their mode into the estate. They came astir 3:00 a.m. with guns, with threats, with fear.

Some operation workers who slept connected adjacent sites recalled freezing successful terror. One of them, who gave his sanction arsenic Ahmadu, laic level connected the level wrong an unfinished building, praying not to beryllium noticed.

“I did not move. I thought if they saw me, I was gone. I managed to spot a telephone to my supervisor, the antheral who engaged maine connected the site, to susurration to him implicit the telephone that I was proceeding gunshots successful the neighbourhood. He advised maine not to determination but to enactment level connected the floor, truthful arsenic not to beryllium deed by a stray bullet,” helium told Saturday Vanguard successful Hausa.

Inside her apartment, Somtochukwu faced the unthinkable. As the men approached, she screamed,

‘Jesus, Jesus!’ Witnesses heard her cry. The robbers, possibly startled, possibly unwilling to ticker her die, pleaded with her not to jump. But fearfulness had already gripped her. Maybe she thought they would harm her. Maybe she feared what each pistillate fears successful specified moments. Maybe she saw nary different way.

And so, she leapt. The autumn was fatal. Her skull fractured. The beingness of a young pistillate who had carried truthful overmuch committedness ended successful an instant connected the hard crushed below.

The Silence After

The robbers vanished into the night, leaving down breached hearts, trembling witnesses, and the inactive assemblage of a pistillate who had erstwhile carried herself similar a queen. By morning, the property appeared mean again, prevention for the sober clusters of labourers and a fewer residents who gathered softly to recount the night’s tragic events. Workers picked up their tools. The prima roseate implicit half-built houses. Cars drove past. Yet for those who had heard her cry, thing would ever consciousness mean again.

One idiosyncratic confessed helium inactive cannot adjacent his eyes without proceeding her voice. Another said helium wished helium had done something, anything, to prevention her. But fearfulness had bound them. And truthful they remember, successful silence.

A Colleague’s Pain

One of Somtochukwu’s colleagues, who craved anonymity, told Saturday Vanguard: “She was from Anambra. That’s however our Sommie near us, conscionable similar that. She wasn’t shot, truthful let’s not spell there. The information is she jumped. There were astir 14 oregon 15 equipped robbers. You cognize however it is with the menace of rape, not each unfortunate tin look it. Maybe that fearfulness was wherefore she chose to leap from the 3rd floor. Sadly, she landed badly, and the interaction killed her. The injuries were devastating; adjacent her skull was fractured.

“She wasn’t conscionable a colleague, she was a quality queen with a privileged background, a tourism ambassador for Nigeria. Arise TV was her archetypal occupation present astatine home. She joined the Arise household successful September 2024, and precisely a twelvemonth later, successful Septe...