News Editor
Fresh indications suggest that DIG Joseph Egbunike died as a result of fish bone from a delicacy he was eating in his office. FIJ investigation reveals.
Egbunike who headed the Police Special Investigations Panel that probed Abba Kyari, the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) and head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), over his alleged involvement in fraud, died on Tuesday after complications from a minor surgery.
Insiders at the Force Headquarters told FIJ that the police chief dies as a result of a fish bone that got stuck on his throat from a meal he took in his office.
“He was eating in his office when he got hooked in the throat by a fish bone, and all efforts to retrieve it proved abortive,” a long-standing FIJ source at the Force headquarters said. “He had to be rushed to the hospital, where doctors successfully removed it via a surgery.”
The investigation Cesar, the source said, felt better after the procedure, so he returned home.
“However, not long after returning home, he started feeling great discomfort again and had to be returned to the hospital; that is where he eventually died.”
Another source at the Force Headquarters told Fij that Egbunike was at the hospital to remove the fish bone, said the DIG, being obese, was always at risk of worsened health condition after any surgical process, no matter how uncomplicated it seems.
“His health was so fragile because he was obese,” said the source, “and he tried his best to manage it, for example with the standard bed inside his office that enabled him to rest at short intervals whenever he felt weak.”
DIG Egbunike held a Bachelor of Science (Hons) Accounting degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; a Bachelor of Laws (LLB Hons.), B.L.; a Masters in International Law and Diplomacy (MILD); and a PhD in Criminology.
