How Boko Haram Killed 4 Ibadan Traders

“Since that Sunday that they were killed, Liaz’s two children have not been able to go to school again. His wife and his three children have been staying in my house, and if I won’t lie to you, their school has stopped. I’m also struggling to make ends meet. Liaz himself knew and was greatly assisting me while he was alive. I can’t cope with sending his children to school; they are now at home with me. So, I want the government to assist us by sending these children to school, because that is the wish of their father – to give them good education.”

Those were the words of Akanmu Lateef, immediate elder brother of one of the four foodstuffs sellers at the Bodija market, Ibadan, Oyo State, who were recently attacked and killed by suspected Boko Haram sect members on their way to Dikwa market, Maiduguri, Borno State, on Sunday May 5, 2013.

The four traders were Fatai Isa (popularly known as Coach), Ahmadu Muritala, Kazeem Liaz and Alaba Aajorun.

The Chairman of Ibadan Foodstuff Sellers Association, Bodija chapter, Alhaji Musliudeen Olalekan, said they received a call early that Sunday morning that some of their members who travelled had been killed by suspected members of the Boko Haram sect.

On hearing the news, Olalekan said he summoned an emergency meeting of all the executive members of the association to discuss the issue.

 “Most of us executive members don’t come to market on Sundays, so when we were informed of the sad occurrence, we summoned an emergency meeting first to confirm the news, how it happened and what needed to be done. This we were able to come up with within a very short time,” he said.

When Saturday Tribune asked how they were able to confirm that the perpetrators were actually members of the Boko Haram sect. Olalekan said they relied solely on information supplied by their partners popularly called ‘Baales’ at the market.

Olalekan said: “The Baales told us that our colleagues were heading to Dikwa market in Maiduguri when their assailants stopped their Golf car. We were told that since those people knew that our people usually plied that road to buy goods, especially sorghum, from the market, they accused them (our people) of buying the sorghum to make alcohol and tagged them as kaffirs (unbelievers). According to the source, they were ordered to come out of the car before they were shot.

“Another source told us that their assailants ordered the driver of the vehicle (an Hausa man) to drop the four men in his car but he refused bluntly and continued on his journey. After much argument, we were told that the assailants swooped on them and killed them all, including the driver. Their corpses revealed that they were brutally murdered.

“In fact, one of the victims, Ahmadu Muritala, whose corpse was found very late, was said to have struggled with bullet wounds but died soon after while trying to run for help.”

Alhaji Olalekan informed Saturday Tribune that the news of the death of the traders shook the whole market to its roots. He said he and his men had a tough time preventing reprisal attacks.

According to him, the association’s executive then decided to take delivery of the corpses at Ikire, Osun State, on Tuesday, May 7. While gathering to receive the corpse, Olalekan said they received a call that Muritala’s corpse had been sighted at a particular location. But because it was already decomposing, they decided it should be buried in the North.

At Ikire where they gathered, they released Fatai’s corpse to his family for onward burial in Ilorin, Kwara State. Kazeem, who hailed form Ikire, was buried right there in the town, while Alaba was buried around Olomi, Ibadan.

After the burial, the Public Relations Officer of the Foodstuffs Sellers Association, Mr Akeem Emiola, said the association made frantic efforts to see that the families of the deceased were not left to their fate.

Emiola said: “All the traders in Bodija market felt for these young businessmen who were cut down in their prime. Let me inform you that they had over N10 million (of our money) with them, but nobody has asked for his or her money. The general concern is the lives that were lost.”

Since the tragic incident, Emiola said the association had stopped people from going to the market in Borno and Yobe states, to prevent a recurrence. But he was quick to add that despite the incident, Hausa people in the market are not seen as enemies, because, according to him, “the Hausa also condemned the nefarious act. We see them here as part of us; there was never any reason for retaliation at all.”

According to him, the association had reached out to the state government to assist the wives and children of the deceased, and that the governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, promised to assist. He said that government’s representatives met with the family members of the deceased last Tuesday at the association’s headquarters, Bodija market.

That day, some family members of the deceased who came to meet with the government’s representatives thanked the state government for sharing in their grief. They requested that the government assist the various families left behind by the victims, even though none of the wives were available, as they were still observing the mandatory widowhood period.

One of them, 65-year-old father of Fatai Coach, Alhaji Musa Isa Alase, in an emotion-laden voice told Saturday Tribune why he preferred that the remains of his son be brought to Ilorin for burial.

Alhaji Alase said: “I learnt my son was killed on Sunday evening. I was told that the traders in Bodija tried to bring all the corpses back home for burial rites. They sent emissaries to me to ask where I wanted my son to be buried. I said they should bring him to Ilorin. I wanted to bury him at the backyard of my house because Abdulfatai, who was the fourth child of his mother, was the only male son of the seven children; the others are female. And as fate would have it, his only child is a female. Then I thought that all of them would get married, so I wanted him buried in Ilorin so that I would be able to see his burial ground.”

To the Muritalas, Ahmadu was a bread winner. The 30-year-old’s death was more than one man’s death to his family members. His brother, Musiliu Muritala, said the deceased, who just got married last year, had left a big vacuum in the family.

“It shouldn’t have been Ahmadu. Who will carry all those responsibilities, including that of his wife and children?” He moaned.

He described the late Ahmadu as ‘an investment’ of the family; one who the entire family laboured for and invested so much in and were expecting to reap from their labour when he was murdered.

“His death was a great loss to us. This is somebody we all laboured so much on, but very sad that when we wanted to be enjoying our labour, he was killed in a mysterious circumstance. His death hit every member of the family who has been benefitting from his gesture. His departure has created a big vacuum for us,” he said.
The concern of Kazeem Liaz’s immediate brother, Akanmu Lateef, is the unfulfilled dream of his late younger brother. Lateef told Saturday Tribune that his late brother had dreamt of giving a befitting education to his children. His untimely death has no doubt put an end to that lofty dream.

Lateef noted that since Liaz’s death, he (Lateef) had, most reluctantly, stopped his brother’s two children from going to school, because he could no longer cope with the demand, coupled with his own family’s already heavy load.

“We want government to assist us, even if it is by sending these children to school,” he said in tears.

Mrs Kehinde Abolaji Aajorun, who represented Aajorun’s family, was too overwhelmed with grief to utter a work. At every attempt she made to speak, she sobbed until she was taken away. Her brother, Alaba, had one wife and a female child.

Leading the state government’s delegation to meet the victims’ families and representatives, the state Commissioner for Women Affairs and Community Development, Mrs Atinuke Oshikoya, declared the state government’s readiness to assist the families of the deceased traders.