Residents of Ekondo Street in Calabar are agitated and are asking questions about how a fourteen-year-old could commit suicide with a shoelace as a string.
The boy, whose name was given as Donald, resides with his grandmother at 49 Ekondo Street in Calabar South, and on Saturday afternoon, he was alleged to have committed suicide by tying a shoe race around his neck.
One of his friends, Eyo, told reporters that the boy, after completing his morning chores that Saturday morning, went to buy cassava meal locally called fufu and was the last they heard or saw the boy.
“After going to buy the fufu, nobody heard from him again until about noon, when the grandmother called a carpenter to help him bring the boy down from where he was leaning on the wall with a rope on his neck.
He said the carpenter asked what happened, but the woman did not say anything tangible, prompting the carpenter to run out of the premises to raise an alarm.
“Nobody heard any noise from the compound until the carpenter ran out and raised an alarm, and we all went inside the compound. The boy’s legs were on the floor; there was no table or object that the boy climbed on to fix his head on the noose, and the string around his neck was just a shoelace,”. Donald stated.
He said the police from Atakpa Police Station came in to assess the situation and later went back.
“The police did not touch the boy, and others who were called to take the boy down did not touch the body, and when the woman was asked to take the boy down, she refused.”
Another resident of the street said he is at a loss for how the boy could have committed suicide with a shoelace.
“There is no way the boy could tie that tiny rope around his neck to commit suicide without the shoelace cutting”.
He said that since the boy died, he has been having nightmares and seeing the boy in his dreams.
“We were very close, and since Saturday afternoon, when I saw him leaning on that wall with a rope around his neck, each time I sleep, I see him, and he keeps asking for justice. All these are happening because the boy is an orphan. His dad and mother are both dead.”
When reporters visited 49 Ekondo Street, the gate was locked, and neighbours said the occupants had gone to church.
“She has gone to church and will not be back till later in the evening,” Miss Elizabeth Edet, a shop owner in the neighbourhood, said.
Ms. Irene Ugbo, the Cross River Police Command Spokesman, said she has yet to be briefed on the matter. “If the incident took place on Saturday, then the details would be given on Monday during the briefing,” she said.
