By CHRISTOPHER OJI

•Calls for proper investigation, justice

The widow of slain Lagos-based lawyer and member of The Guardian’s Editorial Board, Olakunle Alex Fadipe, Mrs. Kemi Fadipe, has called on the Federal Government and the Nigeria Police to unravel the mystery behind the killing of her husband and breadwinner of the family.

Fadipe was killed at his Ifako-Ijaiye, Ogba residence by an assailant, who laid siege to his compound at about 11p.m. on Thursday. The assailant was however, apprehended by local security operatives popularly called Odua People’s Congress (OPC).

Mrs. Fadipe, however, told Daily Sun that her husband’s killer was “a professional killer,” insisting that a thief would not stab her husband the way he was stabbed even after money and other valuable items the assailant demanded had been given to him.

She added that it was only justice that could comfort her and the three children the human rights activist left behind.

“We don’t still know the mission of my husband’s killer up till now. What I want the government to do is to help me find out what the killer actually wanted, because we offered the money he demanded and we were about giving the laptop he asked for when he stabbed my husband to death. He is not a robber.

“ I thought he was a robber, but when I saw the way he was stabbing my husband, I said it was only a professional killer that could act that way. He was even ready to kill anyone, who stops him from carrying out his mission. The way he was asking for things, he was too much in a hurry and he was not patient at all. He was asking for too many things at the same time. His mission was to come and kill.

“I miss everything about my husband. I miss his comfort, his care. He was a good man and a good father. My only request is that government and the Nigeria Police should help us get justice so that my husband would not die in vain,” she said.

She revealed that her son had a dream where her husband was killed in an accident but never had any premonition that the deceased would be murdered in his own house and before his children.

 

“Although I did not have any premonition before his death, but my son had a dream that his father was killed in an accident on June 26. He saw his father in a pool of his blood. After he told us about this dream, my husband, who was supposed to travel on June 24  to return on June 26, decided not to make the journey that period because of what my son told him. Apart from the dream, there was no other sign,” she said.

The first son of the late lawyer also gave an account of how his father was killed.

“I went outside to switch off the generator since the PHCN had restored power. Suddenly, someone held me with a knife; I over-powered him. Thinking there were many of them, I ran inside and shouted, ‘thief’ thief.’ My dad asked him to calm down and asked what he wanted. He said he wanted N500, 000 with a laptop.

“My dad told him he did not have up to N500, 000 at home, but he brought out some money and gave him. As my daddy tried to go downstairs to get the laptop, he hit my dad and stabbed him. All of us attacked him and tried to overpower him. Immediately, we called the members of the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) at our main gate. When the OPC people arrived, they captured him and handed him over to the police,” he said.

Members of the Odua Peoples Congress manning the gate of the estate told Daily Sun that they did not hesitate to race to the scene when they got news of the incident.

“It was about 11p.m. they came to call us; we ran to lawyer Fadipe’s house immediately we got the information. We met the suspect and attacked him immediately. The suspect came to kill because before we got there, the lawyer was on the ground already. We have never seen this kind of thing in this estate before. It was really shocking,” they said.

Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umaru Manko, was said to have visited the late Fadipe’s residence last Friday.


Source: Sun