Mourning as police name Nigerian victim in U.S. shooting

AS the Oakland shooting that resulted in the death of seven students of a Christian University in the city continued to elicit global condemnation, the Police in California, United States (U.S.), yesterday identified a Nigerian, Doris Chibuko, as one of the victims.

Meanwhile, mourners began showing up at Chibuko’s home as soon as the news filtered through the tight-knit Nigerian community in the U.S.

Chibuko had not been heard from since a gunman killed seven people at Oakland’s Oikos University, where she had been studying, but police did not confirm the family’s worst fears until late Tuesday afternoon.

As Efanye Chibuko stood inside the family home in the San Leandro hills, its walls covered with photographs of his wife and their three children, he sobbed: “She liked to spend time with her family. Right now, I’m just trying to grieve,” her spouse, who is a technician at AT&Am, ruminated.

Chibuko, 40, and a mother of three, worked as a lawyer in Nigeria before joining her husband in the U.S. in 2002, who is based in the State of California.

A gunman identified as L Goh, 43, who was said to have boasted about violence, allegedly told students to “get in line and I’m going to kill you all” before he opened fire. By the time the cloud of smoke settled, seven students, including Chibuko, have been felled by the assailant’s bullet.

Goh, a former nursing student in the university, was said to have earlier complained that he was disrespected by younger students and was thousands of dollars in debt.

Chibuko, one of the victims, was described by her husband of 10 years as “a very happy person, very caring, very loving.”

Chibuko, who worked part time at Villa Fairmont Mental Health Rehabilitation Centre in San Leandro, was two months away from graduating with a degree in nursing before the gunman killed her and six others in Oikos University in what has been described as one of the worst school shooting incidents in California.

By nightfall Tuesday, as many as 100 people from all over California had crowded in the Chibukos’ home.

Some mourners even travelled from outside the state. Friends and relatives wept as they remembered the gifted mother and friend.

“For we Nigerians, when something hurts one family, it hurts all of us,” said Christian Okeke, a long time family friend from Nigeria and a law professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. “Yesterday, everyone was praying it wouldn’t be true, but now it is. It’s devastating, very devastating.”

Doris Chibuko was born in Enugu State. She went to Law School and worked as a lawyer in Nigeria.

She met Efanye in the university, and in 2002, they were married in a big traditional wedding. That same year, the couple immigrated to the U.S., where they had three children who are now aged three, five and eight