A Vanguard report quoted NECO’s Director of Human Resources, Abdul Mustapha, while confirming the Professor’s death, as saying he died of a heart failure.
Mustapha said the deceased’s son, Prince Godswill Obioma, sent him the notice of his father’s death as follows:
“Mustapha K. Abdul (Director Human Resource Management, NECO).
“Dear sir, this is to formally inform you that my father, Prof. Godswill Obioma, the Registrar/Chief Executive of NECO, passed to eternal glory yesterday, 31/5/2021, after a brief illness.
“We request that you kindly notify the Board, Management and the entire staff of the council of this development.
“We shall keep you duly informed.
“Prince Godswill Obioma the 2nd, for the family.”
But the NECO boss’ death was earlier reported as an assassination by unknown men who strangled him in his Minna residence as narrated by his wife, Elizabeth Obioma.
The deceased’s widow told newsmen that “the assassins came in and killed him and left without taking anything.”