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Rest In Peace Doris Chibuko – Nigerian Woman Shot Dead In Oakland’s Oikos University Shooting
- Doris Chibuko
Many Nigerians go to the United States of America in search of the American Dream. Doris Chibuko was probably one of them. Sadly, whatever dreams she had has been cut short. The 43 year-old mother of three was just two months away from her graduation at the Koreans Nursing School, Oakland’s Oikos University, East Oakland, California when she was shot by a lone gunman who opened fire indiscriminately on students and teachers on Monday, April 2nd 2012.
The fatal shooting also claimed the lives of six others who hailed from Korea, Nepal, the United States and the Philippines. Doris and her colleagues were murdered by a former student, One Goh, who later surrendered to the police at a Safeway superstore located at the South Shore Centre in Alameda. Media reports claim that the killer was a disturbed former nursing student at the University.
Doris was a native of Enugu State. She studied and practiced law in Nigeria before migrating to the United States. She got married in 2002 to Efanye Chibuko and they both moved to the United States that same year. They had their three children aged 3,5 and 8 in America.
San Fransisco Chronicles reports that as many as 100 people crowded into the Chibuko home to mourn with the family as soon as the terrible news filtered through the Nigerian community.
“She was a very happy person, very caring, very loving,” said Efanye Chibuko, a technician at AT&T, as he stood inside the family home in the San Leandro hills, its walls covered with photographs of his wife and their three children. “She liked to spend time with her family. Right now I’m just trying to grieve.”
Her family said she loved to cook and was mostly a housewife, but she also worked part time at Villa Fairmont Mental Health Rehabilitation Center in San Leandro. Doris planned to become a nurse. Her mother came to California from Nigeria to take care of the children while Doris studied at Oikos University.
“For we Nigerians, when something hurts one family it hurts all of us,” said Christian Okeke, a longtime 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.”
Children were running around the house and several women were crying nearby. On the couch, looking straight ahead amid the hubbub was Doris Chibuko’s oldest daughter, a stunned look on her face.
At this obviously difficult time, I pray for comfort for her family and friends and the fortitude to bear this heavy loss. It must be terrible, what her husband and young children must be going through right now.
May her soul forever Rest In Peace.
News Source: San Francisco Chronicles
