When a group of teenage boys unleashed terror on Utako Village last
week, little did indigenes and residents of the village know that what
initially appeared like the usual fight among boys would degenerate to
the extent of causing the death of one of their own.
The victim, Alhassan Musa had woken up that fateful day oblivious
that death was lurking around. If anyone had told him the boys in the
neighbourhood who were in the habit of fighting one another were capable
of killing, he would probably have doubted it.
Indeed, if he had known that staying at home on the evening of
Thursday, January 23, 2014, would cost him his life, he would probably
too have elected to move out of the area. But like they say, death does
not give its victims notice in advance.
27-year old Alhassan Musa, a indigene of Utako Village was gruesomely
murdered by four teenage boys in the community at about 7pm last
Thursday. Many indigenes of the community who feel shattered by his
death, describe Alhassan as he was called by all as a promising young
man with bright prospects.
His murder cost the indigenes of the community their sleep on the
night it happened and the following day, over 200 of them took to the
streets in protest, demanding justice while calling on the FCT
administration to critically seek ways of ending teenage criminality in
the territory.
Before the mass protest, the deceased’s father, Madaki Musa, who is
still grieving over his son’s death, told LEADERSHIP that the incident
occurred Thursday evening after he had just returned from the mosque.
He said he saw his son engaged in an argument with four young men who
were not indigenes of the community and he appealed to them to
peacefully settle whatever the issue was and left without knowing that
they boys were up to something dangerous.
According to Musa, hardly had he settled into the house before he was informed that his son had been stabbed to death.
“I do not remember my son having a previous quarrel with them apart
from when the issue of those young boys came up, that they go to the
primary school across the road to rape young girls. So, when the report
came to the elders, the boys were called to the chief’s palace and they
were punished and the same boy who stabbed my son came back to the
palace and told the elders that they should also call the young girls in
the primary school and warn them if not they will not stop raping them.
“My son who was stabbed tried to caution them that they had no right
to come to the community and speak to the elders in such disrespectful
manner and that was when they told him that he should watch his back and
that he would be dealt with. That was the whole thing and we never
expected that it would get to this level,” he explained.
The elder brother of the deceased, Usman Musa, who witnessed the
incident, said trouble started when he left his room with his younger
brother, the deceased, to take air outside.
He said four teenage boys who may have laid ambush on the late
Alhassan pounced on him immediately he came out of the house, beating
and hitting him on the head with heavy weapons.
“Just like what my father said, Alhassan rebuked him for talking back
at the elders in the palace, saying he deserved to be punished for
insubordination and the boy was given six strokes of the whip in the
palace.
“I was surprised when I came outside my house and saw my younger
brother protecting his head with his hands while they were beating him
with sticks and other weapons. I made attempts to stop them from hitting
him on the head and as I approached one of the boys to ask him what was
wrong, instead of answering me, he attacked me with a dagger, but I was
fast enough to notice. I tried to hold him to draw the attention of our
neighbours to help us apprehend him.
“But he was very smart and fast so, he ran way. That was when I
remembered my brother and started looking for him, but it was too late
as they had already stabbed him and people who saw him being stabbed
rushed him to the hospital. At that point, I saw one of them and caught
him. That was the one we took to the police station and he is still in
police custody,” Usman narrated.
The national president of Greater Gbagyi Development Initiative
(GG-DIN), Prince Gimba Gbaiza, condemned the murder and blamed school
authorities in the FCT for not fencing schools and providing adequate
security in the schools to wad off hoodlums from using them as haven for
their criminal activities.
“We have received complaints of how teenage boys and even adults use
the primary school opposite this community as a place of committing
different atrocities such as raping school girls. We have called on the
authorities to fence the school and put security in place to prevent
these dastardly acts but nothing has been done about it. I believe that
if the school is fenced, crime around this area will reduce
drastically,” he added.
Read More: The Trent
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