Posted by By SOLA FANAWAPO on
The Jigsaw puzzle created by Thursday's mysterious death of Mobitel President, Engr. Alaba Joseph, began to fall in place yesterday as widow of the late telecom chief insisted that her husband was shot. Murdered!
The Jigsaw puzzle created by Thursday's mysterious death of Mobitel President, Engr. Alaba Joseph, began to fall in place yesterday as widow of the late telecom chief insisted that her husband was shot. Murdered!
Twenty four hours after Joseph died in controversial circumstances, his junior wife, Mrs. Folashade Joseph, told journalists in Lagos that her husband could not have killed himself.
Engr. Joseph, on Thursday morning was found dead in a pool of his own blood shortly after Kemi Pinhero, the Reciever Manager appointed by a commercial bank in Lagos to take over Mobitel Nigeria Limited had left his office, accompanied by armed policemen.
Folashade who said she was shaken about what should naturally be a period of mourning because of the media report that suggested that her husband committed suicide said doctor's preliminary autopsy investigation has shown a perfect hole of about one centimetre width that resembled a bullet hole was found on the corner of Joseph's right eye.
Looking downcast and fagged out, Folashade said she had to break the custom to challenge the crude characterization of her husband as a violent man.
Her words: "They say our Alaba killed himself, well we ask you to hold your opinion until the investigations are complete. Perhaps we might then learn how a perfect hole of about one centimetre that resembled a bullet hole came to appear on the corner of Alaba's right eye.
"How a man who is alleged to have jumped to his death came to lie in a position which is totally at odds with any idea of a jump or any other action taken with free will".
"And why Kemi Pinheiro and his armed companions had to flee and leave my husband to die in a pool of his blood".
According to her, the idea that her husband killed himself over Mobitel's debt to a commercial bank is ludicrous. "He was working level to reschedule the company's debt, and had reached an advanced stage of negotiation with the bank. She said that the bank chose to appoint a Reciever Manager did not surprise Joseph. "What he had not anticipated, and could not have anticipated, was the speed and ferocity with which Kemi Pinheiro sought to take physical control of a company that he did not build".
Folasade also disclosed that her husband left their VGC home in good spirit, had no reason to run and jump. "The problem Mobitel has with the bank was not his personal problem. It was a corporate problem and even to look at it critically, the company's assets alone can offset the debt", she reasoned.
In his own remarks, Prof. Fred Adegoke, the head of Joseph family declared that the family will not leave any stone unturned to get to the bottom of the issue.
The family head lamented the statement credited to Lagos Police command that Charles Joseph committed suicide. His words: "It is unbelievable that Lagos state Commissioner of Police made such statement when autopsy had not even been conducted.
By yesterday afternoon, however, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Sunday Ehindero, had stepped into thhe matter. Saturday Sun gathered that the IGP ordered that the four policemen who went with Pinheiro to Mobitel be detained.
They were already being detained at the Bar Beach police station as at the time of going to press yesterday.
In a related development, Association of Telecommunica-tions Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has called on the Presidency and Minister of Communications, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, to bring about swift investigation of the circumstances of the death of their president.
"We urge that a judicial body of inquiry be empanelled to unravel the roles played by the bank, Pinheiro (who is billed to be made a Senior Advocate of Nigeria [SAN[ next week) and the Nigeria Police". ATCON further pleaded.