“If you ask me, na who I go ask? . . .” So goes a popular song by Nigerian songstress Omawunmi. That song, which dwells on the plight of a young girl who was impregnated by her father, becomes relevant following the reaction of the Nigeria Police to the discovery of bodies floating on a river in a border town in Anambra/Enugu State, South-East Nigeria.

News Express had on Saturday evening broken the story of floating bodies on the Ezu River of Amansea.

Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State had to cut short his foreign trip to return home to see things for himself. The police commissioners of Anambra and Enugu states who accompanied the governor to Amansea yesterday were as clueless as every other person about how the corpses came about.

More than 24 hours after the discovery of the body, Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Bala Nasarawa, announced that investigation into the mystery would commence immediately. His Enugu State counterpart, Musa Daura, completed the pathetic picture of how helpless the Nigeria Police has become in unraveling such mysteries when he declared that the police were at a loss as to where the corpses came from since Enugu and Anambra enjoy relative peace. He wondered how the all-male corpses got to Ezu River as he had not heard of any communal clash whether in Enugu or Anambra where many people were killed.

Governor Obi has offered N5 million as reward to anyone with useful information leading to the source of the unidentified corpses. Describing the development as “mindless killing . . . barbaric and shocking,” the governor said: “What happened here is unacceptable in any decent society. Human life and blood is sacred and all of us must respect the sanctity of human life.”

Acting on the directive of the state government, the police homicide teams have removed the bodies from the river. Anambra’s Deputy Police Public Relations Officer (DPPRO), Mr. Emeka Chukwuemeka, said yesterday that only 18 bodies were recovered contrary to the 30 to 100 bodies estimated to have been floating in the river.

•Photo: Police have no clue, according to Enugu police chief Musa Daura.

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