Josephine Okereke, the widow of the late Ifeanyi Okereke, has disassociated herself from her late husband’s family demand of N500 million from the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila.
Okereke’s family’s counsel, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), in a letter on November 20 asked the speaker to pay the N500 million compensation, or face legal consequences after seven days.
“It will at least mitigate the obvious trauma and hardship the premature demise of their irreplaceable breadwinner has placed on them,” the letter read.
Josephine said she was not informed about it and noted that Gbajabiamila has already promised to take care of the needs of the deceased’s family, including the education of his children.
She said she was shocked by the family’s demand and not interested in anything that will jeopardise the promise already made to care for her two children.
The former newspaper vendor also said she’s more interested in getting justice for her husband, than any monetary compensation.
“All I want now is that the person that killed my husband to face justice, he was the bread winner of the family and he just secured a job with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment,” she said.
Femi Gbajabiamila confirmed the death of Okereke, a newspaper vendor who was shot and killed by one of his security aides.
Gbajabiamila in a series of tweets on his official handle in the early hours of Friday, November 20, 2020, narrated how the incident took place.
According to him, the vendor was hit by a stray bullet meant to disperse a crowd when he went to greet newspaper vendors while leaving the National Assembly.