Residents of Ikot Uduak community, around the Timber Market, MCC Road, Calabar, Cross River State, have since this past Saturday been watching a bizarre drama unfold as the corpses of a man and his wife have been denied burial several days after they were both scheduled for burial, www.calitown.com can reveal.
We can further reveal that even the two graves dug for the burial of the corpses have been sealed off as a raging feud stands between the corpses and their internment.
Investigation by www.calitown.com point to the fact that, the deceased male, popularly known within the community as “Ekpo Owo” had lived in the community for several years and built his house on a piece of land opposite the timber market. It was revealed too that while alive, he laid claim to the land, insisting he long made payment on the piece of land to the deceased matriarch of Ikot Uduak, Mma Veronica Uduak Oyo-Ita.
The matriach’s surviving daughter is believed to have severally insisted to the deceased and several others that they must ‘normalise’, even upgrade payment supposedly made to her deceased mother for pieces of land or risk being dispossessed of the land.
On Saturday as the deceased and his wife were to be buried, a band of thugs arrived the compound and obstructed the burial and covered up the two graves already dug. As anger and confusion took centre stage, the family of the deceased, abandoned the two corpses and left.
One family source who declined to give her name insisted to www.calitown.com that “the corpses cannot be buried on a piece of land that is not theirs, after consistently refusing to pay Princess for it”. It is a submission countered by a reliable source in the area who maintains that, “Ekpe Owo and his wife have been living on that piece of land for as long as I can remember. He had the best orchard in Ikot Uduak on this piece of land bought from Mma Uduak. What you see here is greed on display. Princess has been harassing people with thugs and selling off their pieces of land. Only God can save the deceased; this is abominable.”
The police has since been called in while the corpses still lie on the piece of land, abandoned, at press time.