Cruel fate: How protesters killed final year varsity student

The destructive power of hate and religious bigotry was once again put on display in Jos, the Plateau State capital, when some youths gruesomely killed Mantim Benkur, an innocent, hardworking and enterprising 27-year-old young man.
Until he met a cruel end in the hands of the youths, Mantim was a 400-level Computer Science student of the University of Jos, who was using his computer knowledge to earn income, to support himself in school and also fend for his siblings.
Mantim was the first child of his parents. He established a business centre within the premises of the Bauchi road campus of the university, where he was studying. With diligence, he was able to effectively juggle his studies and running the business, both of which he did very well as he pursued his dream of making a name for himself in information technology services.
But the sun set on his dream about 5.30pm on Thursday, September 14, 2017, when he ran into a murderous group of youths who had unleashed an orgy of violence in protest against the agitation in the South East for Biafra by the Independent People of Biafra, IPOB, which had heightened tension across the country. After stabbing him severally on his stomach, the assailants slit his throat with a sharp knife in broad daylight.
Mantim, who hailed from Kumkwam village, Langtang North Local Government Area of Plateau State had no inkling of danger on the ill-fated day, when he hired a commercial motorcycle at the gate of the university campus, in his bid to reach the popular Terminus market in Jos metropolis, to fix a faulty laptop. Before leaving the business centre, he had earlier asked four of his staff to close work for the day, and then sent home, one of his younger brothers, to prepare his dinner.
As he and the commercial motorcyclist approached the Yan-Trailer axis, close to his destination, Mantim sighted a group of youths chanting songs condemning IPOB’s secessionist agitation and activities. They were armed with machetes, clubs and other dangerous weapons. Sensing danger, he attempted an escape but his legs could not take him far before they caught up with him. Without bothering to know his ethnic origin, they pounced on him like a pack of jackals, beating and stabbing him angrily. His physique and striking resemblance of an Igbo man made him a target of his assailants, who mistook him for a Southeasterner, unknown to them that he hailed from Plateau State.
Though a team of operatives of the Special Task Force (STF) codenamed Operation Safe Haven, in charge of internal security in Plateau and neigbouring states, arrived the scene and rushed him to Plateau Specialist Hospital, but the effort could not save his life as doctors certified him dead on arrival.
On Friday, September 22, his body was taken to his village, Kumkwam, for interment, amid tension as indigenous youths and colleagues at the University of Jos bade him farewell in pain and anger. Louis Benkur, his stepmother collapsed when a relation called her on the phone to break news of the sad incident. She is yet to recover from the shock.
“We were at home that evening preparing for dinner when I received a phone call that Mantim was stabbed by some youths in Jos. I tried his line immediately and the phone rang, but a Hausa boy picked it and said, ‘We’ve killed him; we thought he was an Igbo, but when we discovered he wasn’t, we still had to complete our mission because he was a Christian.’ I slumped and went blank,” she recalled.
“After few minutes, I regained consciousness and broke the news to his father who is a pastor of the Church of Christ in All Nations (COCIN) in Gwagwalada, Abuja. Then we went to the Plateau Specialist Hospital where his body was deposited at the morgue. I noticed that he was stabbed on the stomach and his throat was slit; perhaps, they had wanted to cut off his head before the arrival of the STF personnel at the scene”, she narrated further, in tears.
Her pain is worsened by the fact no suspect has been arrested by the security agencies for the act since the incident occurred, and she feared the murder of the young man who had assumed the role of a breadwinner in his family, would go the way of several other unresolved cases. Julchit Benkur, his younger sister with whom he grew up is still inconsolable, as she reminisced about the past. She was with him four days before his death.
Sunday Sun learnt that Mantim was a virtuous young man with a bright future who began facing the challenges of life from a tender age. After completing his primary school education, he his parents to live with Mrs. Louis Lohchit Benkur, the Vice Principal (Academic) at the Science School Kuru, Jos, Plateau State, under whose guidance he completed his secondary education at the Federal Science College, Ogoja, Cross River State.