Sixty-five-old grandfather, Alhaji Ganiyu Jimoh, never failed to visit his aged mother at Mushin area of Lagos on daily basis. But that predictable routine might have cost him his life.
Without goodbyes to his wife, Risikat, without an inkling of what was about to befall him, Jimoh had set off from his house in Ikotun, around 5pm on Thursday, January 22, 2015, the usual time of his visit to Mushin.
But he was not located until the morning of Saturday,
January 24. By that time, it was too late. His corpse was found in front of a newly constructed estate at the old National Youth Service Corps camp ground on the Isheri-Igando Road, Lagos
According to Jimoh’s widow, her husband, who was an accommodating man, never liked refusing a stranger a lift in his Lexus RX 300 SUV with registration number LND 740 CU.
She said this might have been how he was ‘trapped,’ by his assailants, who killed him after robbing him of the vehicle.
When our correspondent visited the deceased’s home at Ikotun, on Monday, the same day he was buried, the widow, who was surrounded by sympathisers, told our correspondent that she did not have an inkling that her husband of 36 years would die in the hands of armed robbers or kidnappers.
Fighting back tears, she told our correspondent how her husband left home on Thursday.
“There was nothing unusual about him leaving home around 5pm every evening. We all knew that when he did, it meant he was going to visit his mother at Mushin.
“But that day, he said he was going to collect his voter’s card at Alausa before heading to Mushin. Usually, when it was about 9pm, I called to ask whether he was on his way.
“That was what I did that day and he picked the phone to tell me that he was around the Jakande Estate gate at Isolo. That was his usual route and I estimated that in less than 15 minutes, he would have been home. I did not know that call to him was the last time I would hear his voice.”
When the deceased had not got home by 10pm, his wife called his line again, which rang without being answered. When she called 30 minutes later, it was switched off.
“I tried every 30 minutes after that and I got no reply. I had started becoming unsettled because I knew it could not be that his battery was flat since he had a charger in his car,” the widow said.
But when it was midnight and her husband’s number was still switched off, she alerted a next-door neighbour and called the deceased’s older children to inform them about what was happening.
Risikat, who was sighing frequently and shaking her head in sadness during the interview, could not say much as grief overtook her.
