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Two brothers of same mother have met a tragic end after a gun-man went on a shooting spree in the Ilaje Bariga area of Lagos.
Two brothers of same mother have met a tragic end after a gun-man went on a shooting spree in the Ilaje Bariga area of Lagos.
The killing of the two brothers, Isiah Aderounmu and Mudashiru Tijani as they prepared to attend a wedding ceremony on Saturday, April 30, was a fall-out of the mysterious murder of four youngsters by suspected members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC).
The journey to the grave began for Aderounmu and Isiah when they were gunned down in front of their house on Olatunji Street, Ilaje, Bariga by a gun-man simply identified as Alfa. Tijani died on the spot, while Aderoumu gave up the ghost few days later in the hospital.
The elder brother, Aderounmu, 74, who came from the village in Otu, Itesiwaju Local Government Area of Oyo State for the wedding, had confronted the gun-man, after a young man who was shot by him (the gun-man) ran into the apartment of Aderounmu in a pool of his own blood.
According to Aderounmu's neighbour, the elderly man had come out to challenge Alfa for shooting the young man, whose identity was given as Chinedu, in the waist. "Immediately, Pa Aderounmu came out to confront Alfa, Alfa shot him in the head."
When Tijani heard the gunshot, he came out and was dazed to see his elder brother lying on the floor with blood all over him. As he made to speak, the rampaging Alfa shot him on the chest. He slumped and died instantly.
Pandemonium struck as residents fled for their lives. Alfa was not done yet. As he was leaving the scene, he fired another shot which caught an Islamic cleric, a passerby, in the eye.
Alfa has since gone into hiding.
Daily Sun gathered that the massacre started when five youngsters simply identified as: Shola Aina, Lukmon, Bidemi, Amaechi and an unidentified girl left their Bariga home, mid April for Kuramo Beach on Victoria Island but never came home alive.
According to Shola's brother, who craved anonymity, Shola and his friends were going to the beach to have a party when devil traversed their path.
He said: "That was not the first time they were going to the beach. As they were leaving home, Amaechi's slippers cut, so he could not follow them. That was the last we saw of them."
One of the residents in the area told Daily Sun that the boys and their female friend were last seen near the IBB Third Mainland Bridge attempting to board a bus to Victoria Island.
When her son did not return, Mrs Aina and her family sent a search party after the four friends and reported the case at Oworonshoki Police Station.
She, however, got the shock of her life, when some people came to tell her that they had seen her son's lifeless body at the bank of the lagoon at the Ilaje area of Bariga.
"That was the saddest day of my life. I saw my son, Lukmon and Bidemi's corpses with deep cuts all over them and their tongues were missing," she said.
However, the only girl among them is still missing. If residents in the area were dazed to see the lifeless bodies of the three young men, they had more horror lurking by, to strike terror into their hearts.
Daily Sun further gathered that urchins in the area popularly called ‘area boys' stormed the OPC office, accusing the ethnic militia group of killing the youngsters.
An eyewitness said: "They attacked the office and this made members of the OPC very angry. Alfa, identified as a chieftain of the OPC in the area was said to have gone on retaliatory rampage. He was going to attack the area boys in their Ilaje hangout when he shot Chinedu, the two brothers, and the Islamic cleric."
Mrs. Aina, herself, said she suspected Alfa, Danku, Rotimi and ‘Action' as killers of her son and his friends.
She said: "They all belong to the Gani Adams faction. They had come to warn me several times that they would kill my son. Everybody in the neighbourhood knows that all of them especially, Alfa were after my son's life.
When I couldn't bear their threats any longer, I went to beg them with my younger sister and neighbour. Now they have dimmed the light of my life. I can't report them to the police at Bariga because they are all friends. Alfa enters the police station as if it were his house."
Daily Sun was in the area to get first-hand opinion and on being alerted to its presence, residents in the area trooped out and revealed that they are at the mercy of men of OPC in the area.
A motorcyclist, Emeka said: "It is better to enter police trouble than OPC trouble. You can always bail yourself at the police station, but once you enter the cage of OPC, that is the beginning of the end."
Madam Kate, who lives on Olatunji Street also said, "In Bariga, members of OPC are our Osama Bin Ladens. We cannot even report them at Bariga Police Station because all the policemen are their friends. This same Alfa that killed innocent people has broken someone's leg because the person did not greet him. Alfa and his group also killed one Alani over a Sendo phone and buried him in a canal. It was a pig that dug him out. They later found the phone where Jembe, the owner of the phone had forgotten it. It is also in this Bariga that a Divisional Police Officer (DPO) died and we have not found his body till today."
The case, however, took a new dimension when policemen at Oworo division transferred the case to the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID) Panti, for further investigations and the homicide boss at SCID turned down the case.
An homicide detective at Panti said that they could not take up the case because Oworo Policemen did not bring any suspect.
"Can you imagine them bringing such a high profile murder case with no suspect. Instead, they brought the relatives of the dead people. What do we do with those? Isn't it strange that they could not arrest a single suspect even though Bariga is within their territory. That was why my boss ordered them to go back and do a good job," he said.
When the DPO of Bariga Police Station was contacted for comment, he declined comment because, according to him, the DPO of Oworo was not available.
Speaking with Daily Sun, on telephone, Saturday evening, Mr. Gani Adams, the OPC factional leader, denied knowledge of the massacre. He said: "I don't know anything about it. I am just hearing about it for the first time."
Meanwhile, residents are now living in palpable fear as members of OPC have promised to strike again. Amidst sobs, Shola's mother said, "They said they are going to kill my other son and burn down my house. What have I done to OPC to deserve all this?"