By Our Correspondents.
The Abakaliki Ring Road was meant to be a monument to progress—a 60 Kilometer artery connecting communities, boosting commerce, and transforming the landscape of Ebonyi State. Funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), it was a project of international significance, a symbol of Nigeria’s development ambitions.
On November 3, 2021, five engineers employed by NELAN Construction Ltd set out from their homes in Enugu State to supervise the project.
They were seasoned professionals: Nelson Onyemeh, Ernest Edeani, Ikechukwu Ejiofor, Samuel Aneke, and Stanley Nwazulum. Each was a husband, a father, a breadwinner, a pillar of his family.
They never made it back home.
Their disappearance would unravel into a labyrinth of conspiracy, intimidation, institutional failure, and unanswered questions that continue to haunt their families nearly half a decade later.
Engr. Benji Ezeagwu the current NELAN Lead Engineer who spoke to MMS Plus in his Enugu office explained that the five missing engineers were not ordinary men. “They were among Nigeria’s best—highly skilled, rigorously trained, and entrusted with an internationally funded infrastructure project of immense importance.
“The missing engineers were what we called double right handed professionals.Their colleagues respected them. Their communities admired them. Their families adored them.Infact, the best in the entire country”, he noted.
Nearly five years later, the families of the five engineers continue to endure what they describe in their petition as “prolonged distress economic hardship, witnessing psychological and emotional trauma.”
But the economic hardship, devastating as it is, pales in comparison to the psychological toll.
The families also live with fear. They alleged that an “undisclosed persons” contacted them, threatening them not to push further for reinvestigation. The intimidation has added a layer of terror to their already unbearable burden.
They are not just grieving; they are afraid. Every petition they write, every interview they grant, every public statement they make carries a risk they cannot fully calculate.
The wives further compiled a list of questions—simple, urgent, and maddeningly unanswered. These questions define their daily existence:
Why Were Their Husbands Targeted?
This is the foundational question upon which everything else rests.
Were the engineers simply victims of communal violence between Effium and Ezza-Effium communities, as the official narrative suggests?
The families vehemently reject this explanation.
Their petition states that the engineers had resisted attempts by the Ebonyi State Government to alter the contract terms for the AfDB-funded project. The state government had allegedly proposed bringing in another firm to take a leading role—a move the engineers opposed on professional and contractual grounds.
This professional dispute, the families argue, “birthed all manner of disaffection, estrangement and hostility.” They believe their husbands were not hapless victims caught in crossfire but were targeted because they stood their ground on a matter of professional integrity.
Why would anyone kill five engineers over a contract dispute? That is the question that keeps the wives awake at night.
Who Ordered the ambush?
If the engineers were targeted, who gave the order? Who had the motive, the means, and the influence to orchestrate such a coordinated attack on five professionals?
The families have never received an explanation. No one has been held accountable. No one has been convicted.
Investigation by MMS Plus revealed that the suspects who were initially arrested have been discharged, granted amnesty, or released on bail. No trial has taken place since 2022. It appears the case has been quietly buried.
The wives were left wondering: Who is powerful enough to make this case disappear?
Where Is the DSS Investigator?
This is perhaps the most troubling question of all.
Victor Chijioke Onyesom, the lead investigator from the Department of State Services (DSS), was actively working on the case. According to the families, he was making progress—until he was suddenly sacked, booted out of office without formal notice, and had his laptop confiscated.
The families suspected that he was removed because he was getting too close to the truth.
Where is Victor Onyesom now? Was he transferred, silenced, bribed, or “sacked” as the families fear? Who ordered his removal? Why was he not allowed to complete his investigation?
The wives have no answers. They posited that the one man who seemed determined to find the truth was taken off the case.
Another question raised by the wives of the missing engineers in their petition was: Why Did Dave Umahi announce details of deaths of the engineers before the conclusion of Investigation?
They contended that the former Governor’s premature announcement has never been explained.
The families saw this as a deliberate attempt to manipulate public perception—to frame the murders as a random communal conflict rather than a targeted attack related to the contract dispute.
Another question begging for answer :Who are the Suspects?
The families have been left in the dark about the identities of those arrested. Investigation by MMS Plus disclosed that the court records they obtained were incomplete and confusing.
When MMS Plus asked Engr. Ezeagwu whether the matter is the court, he has this to say: “We heard that the matter is in Court, but nobody officially informed us. Infact, we heard it as a rumour.
“So our lawyer (NELAN) went to Ebonyi State and got the charges.After that, we applied for court proceeding, and up till now, nothing has been heard.Last month, (July 2026), our lawyer wrote a reminder to Ebonyi State Director of Public Prosecution, and there was no response”, he explained.
Where Are the Suspects Now?
The wives explained that they do not know, noting that the men who may have killed their husbands are not in custody, and no one is telling them otherwise.
Perhaps the most grotesque indignity the families have suffered is the handling of the remains.
They pointed out that When the police eventually presented the families with bodies—or what was left of them—they brought skeletal remains. The families immediately requested DNA verification to confirm whether the remains belonged to their husbands.
The police refused.
Worse, the families later discovered that one of the five skeletons belonged to a female—even though all five missing engineers were men.
The engineers died while working on an African Development Bank-funded project. The AfDB is aware that their consultants were killed.
But what did the AfDB do?
MMS Plus learnt that there was no record of any public statement, condolence message, or condemnation from AFDB.
An international financial institution with a mandate for development and accountability has remained silent while its project consultants were murdered.
The silence is deafening.
The wives through the petition made available to MMS Plus showed that they have done everything they could. They have engaged lawyers. They have reached out to authorities at the highest levels of government.
They petitioned the President , Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Senate President,
the Speaker of the House of Representatives,
the Governors of Enugu and Anambra States— there was no response from of the authorities.
The silence from these authorities is not just a failure of governance; it is a betrayal of the trust citizens place in their institutions.
When they turned to the courts, they found the case had been abandoned. When they turned to the police, they found an investigator had been removed. When they turned to the DSS, they found the investigation had been derailed.
Every institution that should have helped them has failed them
As if the grief and economic hardship were not enough, the families have also faced threats.
An “undisclosed persons” contacted them, warning them not to push further for reinvestigation. The threats were not subtle: “Stop asking questions, or face consequences.”
The families are now caught between their desire for justice and their fear for their safety. Every petition they write, every interview they grant ,every public statement they make carries a risk.
However, they have not stopped. In their own words:
“The blood of our dear husbands will never go in vain.”
Frustrated by the silence of political authorities and the failure of the justice system, the families have escalated their case.
They have taken their petition to the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) . They are demanding accountability from the judiciary itself—asking how a case can be quietly buried without explanation.
“The blood of our dear husbands will never go in vain.”
— The widows of the five NELAN engineers.
