The
police have arrested the landlord of a building on 41 Church Street,
off Olamummy Street, Aboru, Lagos State, Mr. Akinrinade Adebayo, over
the death of his tenant.
The 65-year-old tenant, Uche Samuel,
died after he was beaten by some thugs allegedly hired by the landlord
to evict him from the property.
Adebayo was said to have used the thugs because of Samuel’s failure to move out of his house.
Samuel, a father of seven and native of Ohaji-Egbema in Imo State, was an employee of Mandilas Nigeria Limited before his death.
When Punch Metro visited the
house on Tuesday, Samuel’s corpse was still lying on the ground, while
many people there discussed the unfortunate incident.
Our correspondent was told that Samuel
was attacked by the thugs led by the landlord’s child, Tope and two of
their neighbours’ children around 8pm on Monday.
Samuel died at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba around 12.30am on Tuesday.
It was learnt that the tenant and the
landlord fell apart some months ago when he (landlord) gave Samuel
notice to quit his house.
Samuel was said to have protested the notice since his rent still remained six months to expire.
Wife of the deceased, Ngozi, 57, told
Punch Metro that her husband was murdered in their bedroom in the
presence of their first child.
Ngozi said two days before her husband
was killed, the wife of their landlord warned her that “they would soon
see since they refused to move out.”
She said on the day of the incident, thugs numbering 15 strangled her husband.
Ngozi said, “My son, who is suffering
from stroke told me that when they came, they asked, ‘Where is that
stubborn man and his stubborn son (Solomon)? We will teach you a lesson
today. They pounced on him and beat him mercilessly.
“Someone ran to my shop to tell me that
my husband had fainted. I rushed to the house and when I got there, I
shouted for help and people came. We rushed him to a nearby hospital but
he was rejected.
“Some people went to report to the
police to enable us to get permit to take him to LUTH. When we got to
LUTH, he was certified dead.”
She said the hoodlums, apart from
killing her husband, destroyed their properties and stole the money he
had brought from the bank to enable them to rent another apartment.
A relation of the deceased, Mr. Austin
Odunze, said when Sunday told him about the quit notice, he asked him to
go to his lawyer.
“His (Sunday’s) lawyer wrote to the
landlord’s lawyer about the quit notice. When the landlord received the
lawyer’s letter, he went and brought a letter from Lagos State Mediation
Centre, Akowonjo branch.
“When the man refused to go to the
mediation centre, the landlord engaged him in a a physical combat in
December 2012. After that, Samuel reported the matter to a nearby police
station. At the station, Samuel was not pleased with the way the matter
was being handled and he requested that it should be transferred to
Area M.
“At Area M, the matter was settled and
the landlord was told to give him six months to enable him to leave. The
landlord agreed. But because of their desperation, they were not happy
with Area M’s decision. Since then, they started threatening him.”
He appealed to the relevant authorities
to handle the matter with every sense of justice to avoid inter-tribal
conflict in the area.
A brother of the deceased, Mr. Angus Uwenwa, said one of the perpetrators regretted that Samuel died.
Uwenwa said the man had told him that
they only went to teach the family a little lesson and that they did not
expect he (Samuel) would die.
Punch Metro learnt that apart from the landlord, the police had arrested about eight others in connection with the killing.
However, Tope, was said to have fled when policemen went to the apartment.
Our correspondent was, however, not able
to speak with any policeman at Ile Epo Police Division, where the
suspects were being held.
The state police command’s spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, said she had not been fully briefed on the incident.
Punch
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