Ebafor and Alex were friends, and they remained so in all intents and purposes—and even in death, though mysterious.
Their separate families are still wondering how it all happened, the cause of the death that struck the two in their separate homes, and brought them to die together at the same hospital in Igarra, Edo.
What is known so far: Ebafor, 25, suddenly lost his mind Tuesday evening after drinking.
So it was easy for his aunty and relatives to think the liquor he took got the better of him that night.
But it added some oddity to it. He was vomiting blood.
A source quoted by the Punch said he also started screaming like Trojans.
“Ah! see money, plenty, money! Alex you are a bad friend, a bad friend.”
When the relatives could no longer ignore the bloody madness, they bundled him up, and took him to hospital.
“They got to the hospital at about 10pm and as the doctor was doing preliminary checks, he started shouting Alex’s name in the hospital again.”
Alex could have poisoned him, so they thought.
But they had no idea where Alex was.
Sure he was at home, and his wife was still out at her roadside shop where she sold fruits.
He called her not to come home that night. The order was so strange she thought she didn’t hear the 36-year-old right.
She headed home later.
What she found cofounded her.
Alex was lying taut on the floor, chanting incantations.
She alerted their neighbours, and they balled up her husband in haste to the same hospital where Ebafor was.
The two friends met in their delirium, and they started their chorus about money. They both behaved the same way. And they both dropped dead at the same time.
Alex’s wife went home in sadness to bring some clothes to shroud her husband.
She then walked into the middle of something stranger: she saw fire and a coffin on the floor of their room.
Inside Ebafor’s room were a cache of charms, too, strewn all over the floor
By now it was not difficult for the neighbours to connect the dots.
The Igarra traditional leaders insisted police evacuating the remains of the two ritual money seekers was not enough. Something must be done about the charms and the coffin.
The state police command will speak officially about it later.