Kunle AKINRINADE
Not a few people who cannot do without the company of all kinds of friends would have a rethink after reading the tragic story of Kehinde Akinpelu, a carpenter who lived at No 1, Biliaminu Oliyide Street, Alagbado, Lagos State. He was allegedly lured out by his friends and his lifeless body found two days later.
On March 27, 2011, Ogogo as he was fondly called in the neigbourhood was enjoying his favourite meal on a Sunday afternoon when he reportedly received a phone call from one of his friends call Ope but he refused to pick it. A few minutes later, one of his friends known as Saheed came in a car to invite the deceased to Oshodi for an urgent carpentry work.
The 37 -year-old deceased, a native of Awe, Oyo State allegedly abandoned his meal and followed Saheed in his car. Three days later, he was found dead inside a canal at Super Bus Stop along the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway near Abule Egba, Lagos with machete cuts all over his body and his tongue was cut off while his eyes were also plucked out.
Narrating the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death, the deceased’s widow, Yemisi stated: “On Sunday March 27 when my husband and I were taking our launch at home, his phone suddenly rang but he didn’t pick it because it was one of his friends called Ope whom I had warned him to be wary of. Not long after, his other friend Saheed who lives on 14 Orilawe Street,Alagbado, Lagos called him on phone him to inform him that he would be coming to our residence to take him out for a job .Saheed told my husband that Ope had just moved into a new apartment somewhere and that he needed the assistance of my husband to fix some items. He returned at 1pm and met me in one of my friend’s shop. And he told me that Saheed actually took him out to assist Ope packed his belongings into a new apartment. The reason for his explanation was because last December, the duo of Ope and Saheed took my husband out and gave him an over dose of alcohol despite the fact that he detested taking liquor”
Not long after that day, Saheed again came to pick him up for a job at his father’s residence in Oshodi. Immediately Saheed entered our house my husband got up and rushed to the bathroom and dressed up to follow him.I asked him not to relax at home but he explained that the job could fetch him an extra money and that he would not want the job to be given out to another person. He then asked me to kiss him and I gave it to him not knowing that it was a parting kiss he was asking for”
Later in the day, she called her husband to know what food he would like to have for his dinner. She asked him not to buy bread as she had already prepared rice for dinner. He told her that he was already on his way home around Ile-Epo axis of the Lagos Abeokuta Expressway.
“I initially called him at 4pm to know his whereabouts and he said that they were caught inside traffic somewhere around Oshodi.When it was 6pm I again called him to know his whereabouts and he replied that they were still inside the traffic at Bolade, Oshodi.And I told him to be careful because the general election was fast approaching. Then at 9.30pm when I spoke with him again on phone and this time he told me he was at Ile Epo.When I asked for what he would like to take as dinner he said he was going to buy bread but I told him that I was already preparing rice for dinner.He then asked me to get a phone charger before his return so that he could charge his phone battery”.
When she tried to call him again his line was switched off and on the strength of her exasperation with the situation she decided to call Saheed to find out what was wrong only to be told that her husband had alighted at Oshodi.
“I decided to speak with him again on Saheed’s line because we usually watched Labe Orun, Yoruba television programme together.Saheed then told me that he had dropped my husband at a filling station near Brown Street, Oshodi.I did not believe him and I asked him to wait for me in his house the following day. The next day, I went to his house in company of one of my friends and I asked him to take me to the spot where he dropped my husband the previous day. When we got there he could not offer any tangible explanation as to the actual spot where he dropped him and that confirmed my suspicion that there was a foul play. That made me to alert Saheed’s landlord and other community leaders about my predicament and it was suggested that we should search for my husband whereabouts together”
“On Tuesday March,29 2011,we left the place and went to search for him on the streets around the Ile Epo axis where the deceased had informed me he was before his phone line went dead. When we got to a point at Super bus stop Saheed suddenly left our midst and stood transfixed at a spot near a canal. And he later called on us that there was a corpse of a man lying on his face inside the canal. When I looked at the corpse I shouted that it was my husband because I knew exactly the cloth he wore on the day he left home”.
She gave further insight into the matter as a case of ritual killing following the discovery that the deceased’s tongue had been cut off and his eyes plucked out at the time his remains were found.
“ I was shocked to see my husband’s tongue severed while his eyes were already plucked out. Even a section of his private part had been mutilated and that suggest that he was a victim of ritual killing. And as far as I am concerned Saheed is prime suspect because he was the one who lured him out of the house for an unknown destination on the day”.
The nearby Lagos State Fire Service Station was later contacted to remove the corpse to the Ikeja General Hospital where it was deposited in the morgue.
The matter was later reported at the Ojokoro Police Station and Saheed was arrested and detained before he was later transferred to the homicide section investigation Department, Panti, Yaba, Lagos.The suspect said he knew nothing about the death of Akinpelu but he mentioned one Ope as the third person with whom they went out on the day the deceased died .
She recalled hw Ope took her husband out last December and forced him to drink beer and got drunk to the extent that he was throwing up uncontrollably when he got home.
“The same Ope took my late husband out on a drinking spree and he got drunk so much that he started vomitting. I told him I did not want him to have anything to do with Ope again but I wouldn’t know whether they meet outside”
“I met my husband in March 2010 but unfortunately he was killed in March this year just when I thought I had found joy in my own dream man,Because of the kind of affection we shared I still see his ghost on daily basis; God will judge his killers”
It was gathered that the police took Saheed to Oshodi where he claimed that Ope was living but when they got there Ope had packed out of his home. They were told that Ope had relocated to an unknown place in Ijebu, Ogun State.
Confirming the incident, Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos Police Command, Samuel Jinadu,a Deputy Superintendent of Police said investigation was in progress on the matter adding that the suspect(Saheed) had been arrested while the case has been transfered to the homocide department of the State Criminal Investigation Department(SCID).
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