Chief Marshal Harry was slain at his Abuja residence on March 5, 2003, one month before the presidential elections scheduled for April 19, 2003. Prominent politicians and civil rights organizations denounced the savage killing of Chief Marshall Harry. Prior to his murder, Rivers state native Chief Marshall Harry served as national head of the now-defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). Intimidating the region with his vast political following in the South-South, he organized it to support Olusegun Obasanjo for President on February 27, 1999.
The political arithmetic of Dr. Chuba Okadigbo and his attempt to actualize President Buhari’s ambition before his death.
However, in an effort to save Nigeria from what he perceived as Chief General Olusegun Obasanjo’s appalling performance, Chief Marshall Harry left the PDP for the ANPP and joined General Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign path. South Africans would vote for General Muhammad Buhari of the ANPP, not President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Marshal Harry said in a public statement. Chief Marshall Harry’s proclamation alarmed the president and other political rivals. Following the ANPP convention, everything was prepared for the upcoming ANPP campaign trail. However, on the evening of March 5, 2003, a group of gunmen broke into Chief Marshall Sokari Harry’s home in Abuja and killed him in front of his family after they were unable to enter the building.
At the Force Headquarters in Abuja, armed robbers were displayed as Chief Marshall Harry’s killers by the Nigerian police force, which was then led by Mr. Tafa Balogun. However, his daughter rejected the actions of the police and acknowledged that, prior to the assassination of her father on March 5, 2003, the gunmen had made a comment in which they said, “You said Buhari for President a Joke.” As fate would have it, Chief Marshall Harry was not there for the general elections held on April 19, 2003, which President Olusegun Obasanjo defeated President General Muhammadu Buhari. The late Marshal Harry was the national vice-chairman of the ANPP South-South and a supporter of Nigerian unification.
His son Inye Marshal Harry and Mujahid Dokubo-Asari of the Mujahid Dokubo-Asari both accused a number of high-ranking government officials of plotting to kill both Harry and former PDP chieftain Aminosoari Dikibo during the 2003 election. Olusegun Obasanjo, for example, filed a N1 billion defamation suit against journalist Akanda Oro, also known as Awikonko, in 2018. The identity of the assassin who killed Marshal Sokari Harry in his Abuja home is still a mystery, and no one has ever been prosecuted.
