September 7, 2024 was a black Saturday for the family of Mr David Achinya in Taraku, a community in Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue State. It was particularly so for Mrs Doosuur Achinya, a 20-year-old widow whose husband, Terhile Timothy Achinya, was cut down in his prime.
On that day, some soldiers attached to the security outfit Operation Whirld Stroke, in Lafia, Nasarawa State capital, tortured to death the final year student of Isa Mustapha Agwai Polytechnic (IMAP), Lafia, after he was picked up by the military around 2pm on September 6 on his way to the examination hall.
A friend and course mate of the late student, Olagundoye Favor, had given him a ride on a motorcycle on their way to school when the military personnel picked them up for reasons that remain yet a mystery, took them to their detention facility and subjected them to serious torture in the process of which Achinya died.
Achinya, a student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering was billed to graduate on September 9, but his dream of becoming an engineer was aborted two days before it materialised.
The development has ruined the life of his widow, Doosuur, and their two kids aged one and three.
Embarrassed at the death of the student in their custody, the military officers led by one Captain Kaakara allegedly tried to deposit the corpse of the late student at Dalhatu Arab Specialist Hospital Lafia, but the authorities of the hospital rejected the corpse when the military officers could not produce a police report.
Olagundoye Favor was however admitted at the hospital and treated for the internal wounds he sustained from the soldiers’ beating.
Following the rejection of Achinya’s corpse at Dalhatu Arab Specialist Hospital, our correspondent gathered, the soldiers decided to take it to the laboratory of the Anatomy Department of the Federal University of Lafia (FULAFIA) where corpses are used for practicals by medical students.
Surprisingly, the lab attendants of the University accepted the corpse for their students’ experiments without demanding to know the circumstances surrounding it. Doosuur, who has yet to come to terms with becoming a widow when she spoke with our correspondent, said she could not believe that all the hope that she and her husband had nursed about being successful in life had been dashed by his sudden death.
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