‘Murder’ of university don’s son raises questions
The cause of the death of a teenager, Abdullahi Muhammad Shafiu, alias Babangida, is yet to be known six weeks after.
Babangida, 12, left his father’s home at Area ‘G’ Staff Quarters of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, in company of five friends on Saturday, November 23, 2019. However, when it was late in the evening and he did not return; his family members began the search of his whereabouts.
On inquiry, the search team was told that he was seen with his friends going towards a stream, which is a stone throw from the Area ‘G’ staff quarters.
When the five friends, who live with their parents as neighbours to Babangida’s family, were contacted they denied knowledge of Babangida’s whereabouts.
Babangida’s elder brother, Safwan Shafiu, said the five boys also refuted the claim that they went out with Babangida earlier in the day.
Safwan added: “When they were pressed further, they told us that they know where he was. At this point we realised that they were the ones that actually invited and took him to the bush near an abandoned stream at the Area ‘G.’
“They took us to where he was killed at about 12:15pm of the following day and his dead body was found. He was believed to have been killed since around 4pm of Saturday, 23rd November, 2019.”
According to Safwan, parts of his brother’s dead body were mutilated, explaining that his eye lashes were chopped off.
He said: “He was found almost naked and there was no trace of his cloth at the place where the dead body was found. These boys however claimed that they don’t know the whereabouts of the cloth until the following morning when they were found at the house of one of the five boys.
“The case was reported to the Samaru,
Zaria police division, being the closest to the crime scene. Before the report was lodged, we invited medical professionals and confirmed him dead and the five boys were taken into custody by the police. However, the families of the five boys began to protest their children’s arrest, saying that they are teenagers, hence cannot be arrested by the police. They described the arrest as an attempt to force their children own up to the crime they have not committed.”
Safwan added: “You know how Nigeria is. People tend to use religion on everything. These parents therefore began to attach religious sentiments to the issue. Therefore, the police transferred the case to the Criminal Investigation Department in Kaduna.”
When asked whether they were able to unravel the reason behind the murder, Safwan said; “nobody knows the intention of the killers, but the question we are all asking is that why the killers removed our brother’s eye lashes. There were also traces of beating and bruises all over the corpse.
Safwan said: “The police are yet to release any information to us on the progress of their investigation. We, however, learnt that two older boys were arrested, as the teenagers have told the police that they were the ones who directed not to disclose the whereabouts of Babangida’s corpse.”
According to Safwan, Babangida has been buried at the Professor Shafiu Abdullahi’s family house at Anguwan Katuka, Zagezagi in the ancient city of Zaria. Professor Abdullahi is presently the executive secretary of the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS).
When contacted, the spokesperson of the Kaduna state police command, DSP Yakubu Sabo, asked Daily Trust’s correspondent to text details of the incident to him and call later. However, Sabo did not respond to the calls of our correspondent up to the time of filing this report.