Sunday 2 December 2012

Was the Nigerian Basketball player really a thief?

There are things that the ears hears and not only tingles,the eyes would assist in shedding blood,because of the gravity of the incident at stake.
Only two days ago,news of a Nigerian Basketball player,who was shot dead in the United States of America,filtered the airwaves and the cyberspace.
Not much is known of a certain Chinedu Onyeuku,but names have a way of finding someone out,and even pitching you with a race.

As would always be,the inevitable question arose, what killed him?
Chinedu Onyeuku was reportedly shot,after he and one other person tried to break into someone’s apartment in Texas in the wee hours of November 21,2012 around 3am.
Now some things don’t add up here, a Basketball player with a career,enmeshed in burglary? No No! I refuse to buy into that.
Going back to what they said happened: “According to local police, the owner of the Rio Grande Drive apartment said he saw two men on his patio at about 3 a.m. A glass door was smashed and the resident pulled out a shotgun and blasted the two men. Onyeuku, age 29, was killed at the scene but the other man managed to escape.”
The reports that emanated after the incidents,said that two men were trying to break into an apartment,before one was shot and the other escaped.
Further reports added that nobody in the building was hurt,and it was only Onyeku that died. So many unanswered questions abound, how could a 29-year old with a wife and two children break into a house without any weapon,if indeed he was going to rob?
I understand that Texas is an area in USA where people are allowed to shoot,once there is a forced entry,into a house. Armed with this knowledge,will any sensible person try to force his way into a house ‘unarmed’ knowing the dire consequences of his mission?
All pointers to the whole incidents,is that it could be a set-up,to get Onyeku in the harm’s way.
According to his agent Adam Prossin, Onyeku has just accepted a spot on an Iraqi team,so how on earth can someone with such promising future condescend to burglary?
According to a Police spokesman David Tilley,he said: “We believe this is more than just ‘an unknown subject breaks into your residence to commit a burglary’” Tilley said.
Onyeku before his death played for the D’Tigers of Nigeria,he played in the African Basketball Championship for Nigeria in 2011, and also was in the team that played in the London 2012 Olympics play-offs in Venezuela.
The Nigeria Basketball Federation in a statement acknowledged the players services to his country.
Onyeuku’s passion for playing with D’Tigers was deep-seated and he will be greatly missed,” the statement said.
The federation joins his family and teammates to mourn a departed son, father, husband and great patriot.”
Investigators waited until Wednesday to release details about Onyeku’s death, saying that they needed to collect some “critical information” before it went public.
What all these tend to address is how well,do our different sporting bodies in Nigeria,monitor their athletes? We only beckon on them when we need them,and ditch them when we are done with their services.
No wonder some of them act the way they do,and we perceive them as arrogant,while in actual sense,it is a case of ‘savour it while it lasts.’
Would you blame one of the D’Tigers players,who represented Nigeria at the Olympics, Al-Farouq Aminu,who stated emphatically in an interview, after the London Olympics that he is not a Nigerian? Well Aminu was born in USA and has every rights to lay claims to a citizenship there.
Like most popular dispositions on Onyeuku’s death, I will take a stance of “ There is more to this, than meets the eye.” 

Source: All Sports

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