A week after a security man was murdered at a popular filling station in Idi-Iroko in Ogun State, the family is calling for justice. Solomon Olaleye Ibileru of Ayetoro in Ipoka Local Government Area of Ogun State, was massacred in questionable circumstances yet to be unraveled by the police. ABIODUN TAIWO, reports.
When Olaleye Ibileru, fondly called Baba Ibeji by family members and friends, left for work that Wednesday evening, he did not have any inkling that death was lurking around the cancer.? As a dutiful worker, he wasted no time in reporting at his duty post to ensure that nothing goes wrong.
Before leaving home, the farmer-turned-security man, who was hale and hearty, had met and discussed with his wife how to send their eldest son, Shedrack back to school. The boy had been staying at home since after his primary education, due mainly to lack of resources to advance his education. Unable to go to school, the poor boy took to commercial motorcycle business, as a means of livelihood.
But the father never came back to wrap up the discussion with his wife on the future of Shedrack or any of his other children. His life was snuffed from him by forces yet to be unraveled by law enforcement agents.
Unlike before when he used to return home early in the morning after his night duty, Baba Ibeji did not return at all, thereby raising concern about his whereabouts and safety.
The family members waited endlessly for his return without any positive signal, it became all too clear to them that something had gone amiss. And they were right. Something disastrous had struck: the bread winner had been murdered and left in a bad shape with no information on who killed him and why they had to slaughter him like an animal.
After silencing Baba, his killers neatly tucked his frail body a hole near a fuel storage tank at the premises of the filling station, where he worked in Idi-Iroko, and disappeared into thin air. Neither the police nor the neighbours have been able to provide a clue as to how the man died, almost two weeks after the brutal termination of his life.
In fact, the concern of the family appears to have shifted from the killing of their breadwinner to the despicable and inhuman way in which he was murdered. That has become the worry of the people because certain parts of the body were either missing or badly mutilated by the assailants. It was clear to all that all sorts of dangerous instruments had been used to club the man to death.
It was even evident that the man had struggled in vain with his killers to save his life. He lost the battle and went down into the Hades. By the time he died, he must have been writhing in pain sacked in his own precious blood. Neither his cries, pains and agony could persuade his merciless and bloody killers to leave him alone.
Blood dripped from all parts of the body, an indication that the killers might have been ritualists.
Narrating the incident to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND, the Balogun of? Idi-Iroko, Chief Gabriel Ibirinde said on the fateful day, he met two people on the road telling him that a relative of his had been brutally murdered, but did not suspect that it was the late Ibileru. Shedrack,? said he could not understand why the man, who had been a guard at the? ZACDOW Nigeria Limited for almost three years was killed on that fateful day.
“I was somewhere in Idi-Iroko when I was called by my sister? to go to the filling station and see what had happened to our father .On getting to the Station, I saw the corpse of my dad cramped in the outer part of the fuel outlet of the filling station.
“When his shirt was removed, blood was oozing from all parts of his body,” the son said.
He said it was clear from the superficial inspection that his father was killed by assasins and not armed robbers. But the police had been told that the late security man died while trying to steal fuel from the tank.
Those who hold that opinion said that he had a bottle of beer which he used in carrying out his act. But one of his sons dismissed such a weak and wicked lie against the deceased, saying that his father could not have used a bottle to steal fuel.
“How could he have used? an ordinary bottle of beer to scoop fuel from the tank when there were many ways he could have done that?’” the man asked. A post mortem examination reportedly carried out by the General Hospital in Ilaro,however suggested that the man was beaten to death with sharp objects, as his skull was broken.
The result of the post mortem led the children to suspect that some persons yet to be arrested by the police were behind the murder of their father. They therefore called on the owners of the filling station to speak out on the death of their father.? “What surprises us was that Segun Bangbekankan, the Proprietor of
Zacdow Filling Station has not found it necessary to explain to the family how the man met his untimely death.
The widow of the man, Mrs. Sarah Ibileru, who is five months pregnant, described her late husband as an easy going man who could not hurt a fly in his life time.? I do not know why they had to kill him in this cruel way. He was the breadwinner of the family, a responsible and caring man.? Whoever killed him has shattered my life and that of his aged mother who still lives with us.
“Who will take care of us now that he is no more?” she asked.
Hannah Ibileru, aged mother of the deceased, said she was devastated that her son had been murdered. “All we want is to know who killed him and why. That is what we expect from the police,” the woman said.
A senior police officer with the Idi-Iroko Police Station said that from the way the man died, it was clear that he was murdered. The officer said the case might be transferred to the homicide section at the State Police Headquarters’ at Eleweran, Abeokuta.