Durugo Mishark Chibuike, a 43-year-old father of three had just finished attending to the call of nature when death came visiting. He was knocked down dead by a road-rage 911 bus driver coming from a “one-way” wrong direction.

Chibuike was on his way from Owerri in a passengers’ bus, which stopped over at Ore, Ondo State, for passengers to alight for some minutes of rest and refreshment after the long journey.

He had taken advantage of the stoppage to buy some food items for his family. It was after he had entered the bus and it was about to move that Chibuike felt the urge to urinate for which he took permission from the driver. He crossed the road to “do his thing” but unfortunately when he was returning to the bus, he was killed.

His distraught wife believes there is more to the untimely death of her husband, a supermarket store owner who was doing very well in his business such that his supermarket popularly called The Source had turned into a big brand where people troop in to buy provisions at competitive price.

“His death wasn’t natural,” the wife says. “I wouldn’t want to say anything about that but I know it wasn’t natural.” Describing her husband as “a very good person that anybody who knows him would testify,” the wife wonders why her husband should be a victim of supernatural forces.

“Why would witches want to kill my husband?” she asked. “He was a family man to the core. Recently, a friend of his who is a lawyer came here and he said he was very close to my husband that if my husband had said anything after his accident he would have mentioned his wife, children and his business.”

He had travelled to Owerri to submit an application form for his younger sister who was looking for a job at the Police Service Commission

in Owerri. After doing that he left for his village to check on his mum and to inspect a house he was building there.

All through the journey, he was in touch with his beloved wife, keeping her up-to-date on his movement. Even during the return journey, he was still communicating with her until the battery of his phone got weak and went off. It was at the point he got to Ore to buy foodstuffs and urinate.

After his death, everything went blank for the wife as she sought in vain to know her husband’s whereabouts. It was at the point she saw her husband’s brother and relations all coming into the house that she suspected that something bad had happened. Suddenly, she says her husband’s brother who used to smile often, was looking sad.

“The smiling man wasn’t smiling this day; he came with my husband’s uncle, which further got me worried. When I saw both of them, I knew there was trouble, and that was how they broke the news to me. They told me how it all happened. They told me the bus stopped at Ore for all passengers to buy all sorts and that my husband had finished buying what he wanted to buy. They said he had already entered the bus, probably they were about moving and he begged them that he wanted to ease himself as he got down. He had to cross over to the other side of the road to do what he wanted to do and as he was about crossing back, a 911 vehicle that took one way knocked him down.

“He was rushed to the hospital on that fateful Sunday but gave up on Sunday morning about 2 a.m. As at the time he was rushed to the hospital, they said a kind man who was at an eatery around where it happened deposited N50, 000. I was also told the hospital is a good one, because they put so many things in his nose and mouth, to aid his breathing. I don’t know why he died, God knows better.” Here is an excerpt of our interview with the deceased wife, a lawyer who assists her husband in his supermarket.

What was his last moment with you like?

A day before he travelled, we all attended the children’s graduation. We took pictures because he wanted to travel before then, but he said he had to wait until after the graduation. Then the week before then was his birthday, and he took every single soul in the house out, and we had a good time. My husband loved me to a fault.

We spoke last when he got to Benin

I called him when he was at Benin and he asked me to prepare him a special kind of meal, which I did.
What was he doing for a living?
He was a businessman, he has his own business and I was part of his business. He has a supermarket of his own.

What would you miss most about him?

I will miss so many things about him, most especially the love he had for me, and it was awesome, everybody around us knows this, everybody saw it.

What were his favourite words that kept ringing in your ears since he died?

He calls me his angel, you know he is Igbo. He calls me Nne.

Have you been seeing him in your dreams and what has he been telling you?

I don’t think I want to disclose that, but I see him in my dreams often.

Has he been telling you to take care of his children and family?

He has not told me any of that. In the second dream, he only told me how the accident happened.

Was he a spiritual man, did he know he was going to die?

He didn’t know. Does anybody know when he will die? My only regret is that I should have insisted on him not traveling that day. I just didn’t want him to travel on that day; I set the alarm on 4. 30 a.m. so that we could wake up together and I could drop him at the park, but unfortunately the alarm woke us up around 7 a.m. I told him that probably that is how God wants it to be, but I knew that if he didn’t travel that day, he wouldn’t be happy. So, I just told him not to worry that we might make it to the park. On our way, I was asking him if he must travel that day and he said yes, then I asked again if what he was going to do will exceed one day and he said no. I persuaded him but he refused. Ordinarily, if I had been angry with him and told him not to go, I know he wouldn’t have gone. But I wanted him to be happy; I wanted him to go with a free mind. And now he has gone never to return again.

What was done to the man who drove the 911 vehicle?

He was detained. The vehicle driver was detained and we were asked what they should do to him, but my sister-in-law said we should free the man. Her reason was that my husband attended his aunt’s burial last year, who was knocked down by a commercial motor cycle rider. When my husband attended that burial, the rider that hit his aunt brought a particular amount of money, I think N60, 000 and the extended family collected it. My sister-in-law was saying that my husband saw it and he didn’t like it. He was quoted to have said that if it were to be him, he wouldn’t collect a dime from the person, because the guy would not bring the woman back to life with the money.