Mutilated body of man found in a canal after friends took him out

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).

32-year-old woman hangs self in Lagos neighbourhood

32-year-old woman hangs self in a Lagos neighborhood
Kunle AKINRINADE
The huge crowd that gathered at 11, Hakeem Alli Street, Ayobo,Lagos State on Saturday, May 16,2011 which coincided with the presidential election was rather unusual.
The building was not a polling unit and the mass of people were not voters but shell-shocked sympathizers. It was a scene of a bizarre incident, hence, residents abandoned the voting centres to catch a glimpse of the dangling remains of Sarafat Adewunmi Azees who committed suicide by hanging inside her one-bedroom apartment.
At the entrance of her apartment was a pair of slippers belonging to the deceased while at the corner of her room was her cosmetic kits and her voter card. The 32 year-old, Iseyin,Oyo State born beautician according to investigation was said to have returned from work on Thursday, April 14 without an inkling that she was going to abbreviate her life.
On Friday, 15,2011 her hordes of customers were said to have stormed her residence as usual to have their faces beautified. They later became confused agitated after knocking on her door without any response. It was in that situation that an unidentified neighbour at about 8pm that day went to the back of the building and peeped through the window of her room before discovering her dangling body.
The Divisional Police Officer of Ayobo Police Station Julius Isijola, a Chief Supritendent of Police(CSP) who led his men to the scene of the incident promised to launch a full scale investigation into the incident, assuring that ‘ police will ensure a proper investigation’
A neighbour who asked not be mentioned narrated how it all happened. She said: ”The deceased was an unassuming person and she always kept to herself. She returned from work last Thursday and she greeted everyone as usual before going into her room. The next day, her customers started coming to have their finger nails fixed while some wanted to buy some items from her but they became worried upon knocking on her door without any response”
“When after many hours of waiting she did not come out of her room, someone suggested that we check her room through the window and that was how we discovered her dangling body tied to the ceiling fan. It was such a gory sight, hence, we raised the alarm to alert neigbours and residents”
Investigation revealed that the deceased popularly called Iya Shakirat moved into the house after her home at the Ayobo Residential was among many others demolished by the Lagos State government.The development subsequently led to separation with her husband and she was said to have squatted with friends for sometime before she subsequently moved into the building where she hung herself.
The distraught owner of the building Mr. Adedigba Adekunle, described the deceased as a very quiet person and an industrious woman.
Hear him: ”She was a very quiet person and she was not a troublesome tenant. She moved into this house about a year ago claiming that her house was among the buildings demolished by the Lagos State government at the Ayobo Residential Scheme. She was into so many things; she was a beautician, cosmetologist and she renders laundry services to residents”
“I have never seen her husband before; they probably parted after their house was demolished. I cannot exactly tell if her unfortunate action was due to financial hardship or not because her rent was due next month. She has an eight year old daughter called Shakirat who lives with her estranged husband”
“But more importantly I think she had carefully executed her own death judging by the way she arranged her room. For example, a voter card bearing her photograph and biodata was place on the floor while she also wrote the telephone numbers of some family members on a piece of paper”
He explained further that futile efforts were made to contact some of her family members including her husband.
Hear him:” There were some telephone numbers she wrote on a piece of paper and when we called some of them they declined response. Even when we called her husband too he asked us to leave him alone.We`are awaiting police report and we have called the Lagos State Ambulance service to come remove her corpse after necessary propitiation is offered because this is an abominable incident ”
In his words, the chairman of the Ogoluwade Community Development Association, Pastor Johnson Samayi said:” It’s just unfortunate that the woman took her life. We don’t really know what the motive behind her action is all about. But from the point of religion, I know that certain evil forces must have led her to embrace suicide. As a pastor, I have listened to testimonies by people about some evil voices asking them to jump into the sea”.
“I want to encourage residents to be prayerful and to always share their problems with men of God who can intercede on their behalf with prayers and counsel them with word of God”
The incident prompted a resident who simply identified himself as John to add a spiritual angle to the development on the strength of series of similar incident in the community in recent time.
He said: “We really need prayer in this community because a lot of this kind of incident has happened in this area in the last few weeks. Only a few weeks ago, a man said to be mentally challenged jumped into a well while another woman only a few days ago died during child birth”

God i don't deserve this!

‘God, I don’t deserve this!’
Kunle AKINRINADE
Physically-challenged Emmanuel Oladipupo Bada is a lawyer. He is Principal State Counsel in the Lagos State Ministry of Justice. He bore tell-tale signs of the bereaved when he met the correspondent a few days ago.
Dressed in a black suit, he cut a pitiable sight as he glided its way to the front desk office in crutches. With bated breath, he made to narrate the ordeal that had suddenly turned him into a crooner of lamentation. But his tear ducks opened, giving way for uncontrollable tears.
You’ll not be wrong to think he’s been cheated by someone, but not on the account of physical disabilities. Instead, he is a lamenting the curious loss of N3.3million to armed robbers, blaming it on the negligence of a GTBank cashier.
Recently, Bada had been experiencing pains in his legs and based on medical advice, he was scheduled for a medical check overseas. The trip was estimated to cost him millions of naira but he lacked the resources to do so. When all efforts to gather money failed, he was forced to sell a property he inherited from his late parents and with the support of kind-hearted people, he was able to raise the stolen money which he deposited in his account at the GTBank, Alausa branch, Ikeja, Lagos State.
On September 8, 2010, Bada had gone to the bank to withdraw the money in company with his senior brother, Gbenga. But it was without an inkling that danger was lurking around for him. He alleged that when he presented the cheque to the cashier called Mojeed Ayibiowu, he had expected that given the volume of the amount involved, such payment should not be done in the open, adding that he actually protested against being paid in the open in the banking hall.
His plea, he recalled, fell on Ayibiowu’s deaf ears as he insisted on paying Bada in the open. In an emotion-laden voice, Bada further recalled the incident: “One Mojeed Ayibiowu, a cashier in the bank took an undue advantage of my disability by forcefully paying me N3.3million over the counter in the presence of the crowd in the banking hall on September 8, 2010 in spite of my protest against such conduct after keeping me on my crutches for 35 minutes. All my pleas that his actions were capable of exposing me to danger made no sense to him at all. On presenting the cheque to him, he said he was going to make certain confirmation on phone which was not clear to me because it’s my money I wanted to withdraw from my personal account with the bank.
“When he came back, to my chagrin, he asked me to come over to the counter to take the money. I begged him not to do so because he could expose me to danger, but he refused to listen to me. Instead, when he realised I was not going to shift ground, he came over to where I was standing and dumped the money wrapped in cellophane bags before me in the presence of everyone in the banking hall.”
Frustrated, Bada left the bank with the money kept in his car on his way to effecting payment for his planned foreign trip when sons from hell operating on a motorbike ambushed him a few distance away from the bank, thus dispossessing him violently of the money.
Hear him: “A few minutes after I left the bank, armed robbers operating on a motorcycle, apparently trailing me from the bank, attacked me at gunpoint. I remember seeing one of the robbers earlier in the banking hall. They had wanted to shoot at me but I managed to raise my crutches up and when they saw it, they came over to the car and asked me to wind down before taking away the money. But my brother who was driving in his car at the back wasn’t lucky. He had thought the robbers were reckless okada riders and he alighted from his car to ask what the matter was all about and the robbers angrily pumped hot bullets into his body. As I speak, he is hovering between life and death at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi Araba. I narrowly escaped death when a bullet fired at me narrowly missed my head but riddled the roof of my vehicle.”
Speaking further, he said: “The bank has since remained unperturbed and has shown no concern over the incident which was a direct consequence of gross professional incompetence and recklessness on the part of one of its members of staff who exposed me to security risk by deliberately and forcefully paying me a bulk sum in open glare. The Close Circuit Television (CCTV) mounted in the banking hall had captured the whole scenario where I made my protestation against the conduct of the cashier, but I am afraid it may have been doctored by now.”
“In the course of preliminary investigations, a team of policemen led by CSP Babatunde from the Anti-Vice section of the Lagos Police Command was at the bank to preview the said CCTV recording in the presence of myself, one Mrs. Mopelola, the bank’s counsel and other members of staff at the branch including the cashier on September 29. Everyone was speechless after seeing the footage of the transaction. The branch manager later made a commitment on principle at the Anti-Vice section of the Command on September 30, 2010 to make a refund, but till date, nothing has been done. I am therefore using this medium to call on well-meaning Nigerians to kindly come to my aid by prevailing on the management of GTBank to wear a human face because I am currently experiencing excruciating pains in my legs while my brother is still in a critical condition at the hospital. Please save my soul.”
Meanwhile, Head of Corporate Communications, GTBank, Mr. Femi Adeniran, said that neither the bank nor the said cashier was responsible for Bada’s woes. Hear him: “I greatly sympathise with Bada over the unfortunate incident because as a bank, we do not like to lose our customers let alone see them experience such terrible situations. But I beg to differ that our cashier had a hand in the unfortunate incident. For the avoidance of doubt, as a rule, once a cheque is presented over the counter, the owner would be paid over the counter and there is no such thing as effecting the payment at a secluded place other than the counter where the cheque was presented. In this case, any one could have masterminded the robbery since it did not take place in the banking hall.”
Since the accursed devil’s agents wreaked the havoc on Bada’s economic fortunes, by his confession, life had remained a nightmare for him and his entire family which, willy-nilly, has been made to bear the brunt of the unfortunate incident. “God, where do I go from here? Where?” This has been the daily refrain on Bada’s “beaten” lips.

Fire guts Pastor Bakare's home

The Lagos home of the vice presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change(CPC) Pastor Tunde Bakare went up in flame yesterday afternoon.

The fire which started around 3pm ravaged part of the building situated on Abiodun Olaiya Close,Awuse Estate,Opebi,Ikeja,Lagos.

It was gathered that the occupants were alerted by neighbours before it was put out by men of the Lagos State Fire Service.

A highly placed source who craved anonymity told our correspondent that the fire which started from the children's rooms was caused by an electrical fault.

Technicians were seen battling to restore light in the building when our correspondent visited the scene of the incident.

Meanwhile,spokesman of the Lagos State Police Command Mr.Sam Jinadu,a Deputy Supritendent of Policeexplained that the cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained adding that investigation had just begun on the matter.

Awolowo the great politician