The widow of late Barrister Godwin Ikoiwak, Barrister Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak, who is standing trial at an Akwa Ibom State High Court sitting in Uyo with some of her family members for the alleged murder of her husband narrates her side of the story.
I do not have a hand in my late husband’s death and I have no reasons to have killed my husband. We had no quarrels, we had no fights, and we even did not have any misunderstanding to have warranted me plotting his death. If I know of or am a part of anything that led to my husband’s death, may God punish me, may God make me run mad.
My late husband worked in Uyo, while I work in Calabar. We only interchange visits. My husband, who visited us last Christmas, left me with the kids and returned to Uyo on the 7th of January, 2022. Following his return to Uyo, my husband and I maintained cordial and effective communications over the telephone.
A few days preceding the murky day of his demise, I sent my late husband a N500 recharge card after he jokingly said, you women don’t always give. He received the recharge unit with appreciation and teasingly he said, “After now, you will look for a way to get the recharge card back from me”. Thus, we played over the telephone and of course, we were used to cracking jokes about every little thing. Those conversations are verifiable as they took place over our cell phones.
In the early hours of the morning on Thursday, 20th January 2022, I had a call from my husband who told me he was not feeling fine. Suspecting an asthmatic attack as my late husband had asthma which is usually very fierce and threatening whenever the attack comes, I assured him that I will be heading to Uyo to attend to him during the daybreak. From what my late husband told me, he was asthmatic from a tender age, a medical history that is with the deceased’s family but which they have refused to inform members of the public about.
I had barely entered Akwa Ibom en route to Uyo when I got a call from my husband’s phone but this time, it was a strange voice who after identifying me asked me to come over to St. Lukes Hospital, Anua in Uyo, stating that my husband was there. Being so directed, I headed straight to Anua but to my greatest shock, on arrival at Anua, I found my husband already dead and lying in the casualty section of the hospital. I was frightened, shocked and confused beyond words. I was motionless and lost my coordination, strength failed me, not knowing what to say or do or even where to go. I didn’t know who to turn to. I managed to ask some questions as to how my husband got there and what happened to him. But there was no response.
I searched for the man who used my husband’s phone to call me but couldn’t find him again. Initially, I had thought that the caller was a Doctor as he was also the person who led me to where the remains of my husband was when I arrived at the hospital but when I managed to put myself together a bit, I asked for the man’s whereabouts but he was nowhere to be found. The entire episode was, and it is still, like a dream. To even make matters worse, the family of my late husband decided to add to my pains by lying to the world that I had a hand in the death of my husband.
My husband and I have been married since 2017 and the marriage is blessed with two children, the second of which was barely six months old at the time of my husband’s demise. I had nothing against my husband when he was alive, and neither did he have anything against me. All the stories you are hearing or reading on social media portraying me as one who had trouble marriage or as one capable of or actually killing or as having masterminded the death of my husband are cooked up lies and concoctions maliciously and desperately weaved together by the family of the deceased in expression and demonstration of unjustifiable hatred for me and in order to dispossess me and my children of anything they believe their brother and son left behind.
In a demonstration of their unremitting wickedness, they also went to my village and arrested my aged and sick mother alleging that she also has hand in the death of my husband. As though, they have not done enough, they found ways of robbing my elder brothers, alleging that they assisted me in attacking and killing my husband. Meanwhile, my brothers are very responsible and gainfully engaged men who work and live independently with their respective families outside the state. My said brothers have never lived with me or with the deceased.
It is very heartless that they then turned their attention to my innocent aged mother who loved and cherished the deceased as her own son. They raised false and denigrating allegations against my mother who herself is a poor widow, got her arrested and continued to persecute my family without a cause.
How can any right-thinking person imagine me killing my own husband and father of my children, so as to be a widow and shoulder the arduous responsibility of catering for the family alone? When it was not easy with both parents, could it be easier with one? If, indeed, my husband was killed by anyone, his blood will hunt after his killers and God will bring the perpetrators of this dastardly act to judgement.
My late husband’s family believe that they are very rich, powerful and highly connected people with unfettered access to every tool they need to decimate me and my family and this, they are doing willfully and freely, even when they know that I am innocent of their allegations but my God will vindicate me and all my persecutors shall see shame.
St Luke Hospital, Anua, Uyo, still have not explained to me what happened to my husband, how he got into their hospital and how his case was handled and I also do not understand why the family of my late husband is making me go through so much pain and shame. I need justice for my late husband and I need justice for myself. I want to go home and take care of my two little children as they are all I have left.
—Barrister Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak
Editor’s Note:
The story of the unfortunate and sudden death of Barrister Godwin Ikoiwak and the subsequent trial of his wife and some of her family members was reported last Friday. Check details out here:
How Lawyer Accused Of Killing Her Lawyer Husband Brought In Son She Had With Rev Father As House Help – Witness https://eighteenelevenmedia.com/how-lawyer-accused-of-killing-her-lawyer-husband-brought-in-son-she-had-with-rev-father-as-house-help-witness/
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