Amidu Arije
A grieving father, Joseph Makinde, is not only mourning his 13-year-old son, who was gruesomely beheaded allegedly beheaded by two siblings, Ayodeji Obadimeji and Saheed Obadimeji, on November 27, 2018, but is also lamenting his inability to retrieve the boy’s corpse for burial.
The distraught welder, has, therefore, cried out to Nigerians to come to his aid.
Speaking with The Nigerian Xpress, Makinde tearfully recalled the tragic incident as well as his last moments with his beloved son.
“Last November 26, we sent him to buy something from the third house to ours; it was about 6:30pm. However, unusually of him, he took too long in returning from the errand. We waited till about 7:00pm but when he was still not yet back, we knew something must have gone wrong. So, we started searching for him. When we couldn’t locate him, we quickly reported at the Elemoro police station. We were told to come back the next day after 24 hours. Still, we kept searching for him till about midnight because we couldn’t just go home and rest.
“During our search for him, we saw some police officers, who were conducting a raid in our area. We approached them but they asked us to go back but we told them we could not because we were searching for our son. The police gave us a number to call the next day, assuring us that the boy would be found but we did not know that the police had already arrested two boys, who had beheaded our son about 8.00pm,” he revealed.
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Continuing his narration, the grieving father said: “When morning come, we quickly ran to the police station. On getting to the police station, they told us to check the back of their vehicle to confirm if the person there was who we were looking for. On checking, we saw Joseph already beheaded. We couldn’t hold it; we all burst crying.”
Makinde said that the police promised to track down other members of the gang, who were at large but needed N50, 000 to do that.
“Two of the boys were arrested and one at large, when we got to the police station, we were told that they would do tracking to know the whereabouts of the other members of the gang. They requested for N50, 000, which the community gave them to help fast track the process of getting all of them arrested to face justice. But since then we have not heard anything on it. I called them some days ago to enquire how far they had gone but to my dismay, they told me that they were not doing anything on it yet,” he said.
The helpless father appealed to well-meaning Nigerians and the government to come to their aid. He put the mortuary charge for embalmment at N40, 000 with a storage fee of N1, 000 per day. Given the time the corpse has been deposited – since November 28, 2018, Makinde estimated that the bill might eventually come to between N100, 000 or N200, 000, an amount he said they couldn’t afford.
However, the case was eventually slated for hearing at the Chief Magistrate’s Court, Oyingbo, Yaba, Lagos, on Tuesday, January 8, 2019 but Makinde was very disappointed when he got to court only to be told that it had been deferred to February 11, 2019.
Expressing his displeasure, Makinde said: “Today, we have come to court but only to be told that it has been postponed till February 11. The painful thing is that we would have to pay before we retrieve the corpse of our beheaded from the mortuary for burial. We are likely to pay up to N100, 000 or N200, 000 because they charge N1, 000 daily. We have called the police officer in charge to complain but he told us that, that is the practice; we have to pay to claim the corpse. We are appealing for help from the government to please release the body for us for burial because we don’t have money to pay for the mortuary fee,” he appealed.
Makinde explained that the matter was adjourned because the suspects were absent from the court.
He also disclosed that the police officers in charge of the case Emmanuel and Jolasho had earlier hinted him that the case might not be heard on Tuesday.
Recalled, that the Lagos State Police Command had earlier arrested the perpetrators of the gruesome killing of the innocent boy.
During interrogations, it was revealed that the suspects had allegedly lured the victim into buying them a drink before cutting off his head.
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The two siblings revealed that one Sodiq Abefe, who promised to pay them N200, 000 for a human head, allegedly contracted them.
When the news broke last November, the police spokesperson, CSP Chike Oti, who confirmed the incident, said the suspects were arrested on Tunde Balogun Street, Shapati, Ibeju-Lekki.
The suspects were reportedly arrested around 10.30pm by a team of anti-kidnapping personnel on a routine patrol along Ajah – Epe Expressway.
“On interrogation, they confessed that one Sodiq Abefe contracted them to provide him with a human head at the cost of N200, 000, hence they lured the victim by sending him to buy a soft drink for them and when he brought the drink to them, they held him and cut off his head with a knife.
“The victim was identified by his parents as Joseph Makinde, aged 10 years.
“His torso was recovered from an uncompleted building at Shapati and effort is being made to arrest the said Sodiq Abefe, who allegedly contracted the duo to commit the heinous crime,” Oti had said.