Margaret Igbeta, a retired president of the Benue State Customary Court of Appeal, has being murdered by gunmen in her residence on Wantor Kwange Street in the state capital of Makurdi.
Igbeta, 72, was discovered dead in a bloody pool on Thursday evening.
On Friday morning, it was reported that the judge had been killed and her blood had been poured all over her home by as-yet-unidentified gunmen. Her body had been found.
The condition of the deceased jurist’s corpse prompted others to believe that she may have been murdered a day earlier.
Later, the police were able to recover her body from her residence near the BSU College of Medicine on Gboko Road in Makurdi.
A police source not authorised to speak with journalists, said, “Yes, it’s true. Yesterday, (Thursday) her lifeless body was discovered in her house but the corpse was not looking too good again meaning that it couldn’t have happened yesterday; may be a day before yesterday (Wednesday).”
The source added that the police were working to unravel the killers of the judge even as her family members were already giving useful information to effect an arrest.
However, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Catherine Anene, when contacted replied in a text message, “Let me get to town and understand what happened.”
The late Justice Igbeta was born on October 17, 1950 and hailed from Vandeikya Local Government Area of Benue State.
Igbeta rose through the ladder from being a Pupil State Counsel in the Benue State Ministry of Justice in 1976 to becoming a judge in 1995. He was President of the Benue State Customary Court of Appeal in 2003 until her retirement on October 17, 2015 upon attainment of the statutory age of 65 years.
Recall that the Federal Government had in 2019 filed an application before a High Court in Abuja, requesting an interim forfeiture of N840 million traced to the now deceased retired justice.
The federal government through the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), alleged that the money was traced to a proxy bank account operated by Igbeta’s maid.