EXCLUSIVE: How violent Christmas cow killed my brother in Bayelsa

A 43-year-old electrician in Bayelsa State, Sobokime Igodo, was attacked two days to Christmas by a cow intended to be slaughtered for Yuletide celebration. The elder brother of the deceased, Eniye Igodo, speaks to DANIELS IGONI about the sad incident

How are you related to the late Sobokime Igodo, who reportedly died after being attacked by a cow?

 My name is Eniya Igodo. I am the immediate elder bother of the late Sobokime Igodo. He was 43 years old.

In what circumstances was he attacked by a cow, leading to his death? 

Actually, you know we are in the festive season and he and his group of friends decided to contribute money to buy a cow so that they could slaughter it and share among themselves and make merriment with their families. So, on December 23, they brought the cow to his residence as the secretary of the group. But where the cow was kept was not the actual spot they wanted to slaughter and butcher it. They tried to move the cow to the spot where they wanted to slaughter it, but the cow refused to move. It stayed put to the ground. Somebody was holding the rope with which they tied it. Suddenly, the cow got up and rushed towards Sobokime and attacked him, hitting him, and he fell to the ground immediately. The person holding the rope could not restrain the cow as it got loose from the rope. The cow left him and ran in another direction after nobody in particular.

 Did he get up from the ground afterwards?

 No. We were expecting him to stand up from the ground but he could not. He lost consciousness briefly, but regained it almost immediately. We asked him how he was feeling and he said it felt like he was floating; we tried to raise his hand but it fell down. We also tried to raise his legs, no way. Instantly, he said he could not feel any sensation in any part of his body. There was complete paralysis.

 What did you and other people do at that point in time?

 We rushed him to the Yenagoa Federal Medical Centre. The doctor who attended to him said he had sustained a spinal cord injury and that the hospital had no specialist to handle his case.

The doctor then recommended that we should take him to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital or University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital or Enugu. So, we chose to take him to UPTH since it is closest to us.

Did you leave for UPTH that same day?

No. The next day, December 24, we arranged for an ambulance and took him to UPTH. He was talking with us in the ambulance on our way to UPTH. He said he was having difficulty breathing. As soon as we got to UPTH, he said we should get him out and we promptly did so. We called the attention of a doctor because FMC Yenagoa gave us a referral letter. So the doctor gave him quick attention. My brother was taken to the emergency unit for the doctor to examine him. It was while the doctor was examining him that he gave up the ghost.

 Did Sobokime participate in the attempt to move the cow to the actual spot where they wanted to slaughter it?

 The group hired the services of two butchers; one of them held the rope on the neck of the cow and the other held the rope at the cow’s back. My other younger brother told me that someone had called Sobokime on the phone to meet him at the junction nearby, and he wanted to go meet the person but he changed his mind to also assist the butchers to move the cow to the right spot for slaughtering. He joined the one in front of the cow, and that was when the cow suddenly sprang up and attacked him, and he fell down.

 Did he fall on his back?

 Yes, he fell on his back to the ground. He kept complaining of pains in his head after the incident.

What is the name of his group of friends?

 They do not really have a name. They are just a group of friends who work at building and construction sites. Sobokime was an electrician. In the group, they have carpenters, tilers, masons, block suppliers and so on. Whenever they have a job, they work as a team. 

 What happened to the cow, eventually?

 Well, they went ahead to slaughter the cow and share it. They delivered my brother’s portion, too.

What kind of person was Sobokime in the family and the community?

 He was a promising young man. He was a responsible member of the family until his death. He was the Igodo family secretary. He was married. In fact, we are grieving over his death because he was happily married with children-two boys and and two girls. In the community, he was a former youth president. He served the community very well. That is why a lot of people turned up for his burial. He was a peaceful person. You would never hear that he quarreled with anyone. He was loved by many people in the community. From the funeral service to the graveside and the family compound, everywhere was filled with sympathisers.

When did he serve as the youth president?

He served from 2018 to 2020. It is usually a two-year tenure. His tenure was peaceful and good for the community. He made a positive impact and there were no issues. You know, as a community you will work and put little things on the ground, his executive carried out some community projects. There was no rancour.

 When was he buried?

 We buried him in the morning of December 26, 2022. We did not want to keep his corpse for long because of his sudden death and there is also an event that is coming up in the community, which concerns us the Igodos. One of us would be installed as the paramount ruler of our community. We wanted to lay him to rest so that the family can move forward because a lot of preparations for the chieftaincy title were in place already before the incident of his death.

 Did the two of you grow up together?

 He was my immediate younger brother and we grew up together in our village here. But it was during my secondary school that we separated.

 What was his life ambition while growing up as a child?

I can’t remember because, like I said, I left the village to attend secondary school in Yenagoa while he was in the village.

 How would you describe the quality of his work as an electrician?

 Sobokime was not an ordinary electrician because he trained at the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, Delta State. The training was sponsored by the Brass LNG and he was among those selected for it. So, he was a qualified electrician. He was doing really well before his sad death. He had even just returned home from work before his group decided to slaughter the cow. He did the electrical wiring of many houses within and outside our community. He always had electrical jobs within and outside Bayelsa because he was good at his job. If he wired your house, you would not have any cause to complain.

Apart from being an electrician, what other things did he do?

 Well, I think he was also into politics. He worked for some aspirants and candidates who contested for elective positions. He was in active politics.

 How are his wife and children taking the sad incident?

 Myself, his wife and one of our younger brothers took him to UPTH. When we got to the hospital, they told us there was no bed space for him but the ambulance man donated the bed in the vehicle for use until the time my brother would have one. We did not believe when the doctor confirmed him dead. We were praying that God should do His miracle for us over my brother. But I think it was the will of God that he should go. Sad! However, we did not disclose his death to his wife because we did not want to create a situation that we would not be able to control. We called their pastor on the phone and told him what had happened. So we told her that the pastor said we should keep praying for her husband. We told her we were taking him to the pastor as we returned to Yenagoa. We did praise and worship throughout our journey back to Yenagoa and she also joined us. Inside the ambulance his face was not covered, so it looked as though he was asleep. She held his head and tried to guard it, especially when the vehicle drove through bad spots on the road. In some instances, she would tell the driver to drive more carefully. We got to Yenagoa in the evening and took his corpse home, but we later decided to take it to the mortuary.

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