Raphael Ebezpeke, a 40-year-old father of two and the youth President of Polaku Community, in Bayelsa State has reportedly taken his life via hanging.
His lifeless body was discovered hanging from a tree by some youths in a nearby bush on Monday.
According to sources, he had been struggling with mental health issues, which ultimately led to this devastating incident.
Reports from the community suggest that Ebezpeke had spoken about feeling pursued by unseen forces planning on ending his life, until he fled his home in January, only to return later.
“Raphael usually talked about unseen forces trailing his life and trying to kill him. There was a time in January when he also ran out of the house to the same bush, but later he came back to the house. His sisters said he ran out of the house screaming, ‘they want to kill me, they want to kill me’.
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“By the time wetraced him to the bush, we saw him hanging on the tree,” the community source said.
A youth leader from Gbarain community, while expressing sorrow over Ebezpeke’s death, acknowledged his struggles with mental health.
“Quite unfortunate that we lost Raphael. I know he had some mental issues, so I used to personally counsel him and introduced him to some healthy lifestyle. Whenever we saw him with some persons associated with hard drugs, we also cautioned him to dissociate with such persons.
“He was always saying there were people after his life, and they wanted him dead. On whether it was murder and not suicide, we don’t think it was murder and we haven’t also suspected anybody, but he might have taken his life. What a pity!” the leader said.
