Forty-five-year-old carpenter, Falayi Obadare, was killed by a mob that labelled him a robber at the Olujoda area of Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. His wife, Yemi, narrated that her husband was robbed of his dream of seeing his three children become university graduates
He was killed on June 16, 2020. My husband left home, saying he was going to work on a building site. She said
Later in the day, I got a call from my husband’s phone. We saved each other’s phone numbers as ‘One Love’. When I answered the call, I said, ‘Hello dear,’ but the voice on the other end said, ‘It’s not your dear calling. We found this phone on the ground.’ The caller said he did not know the owner but that I could come to collect the phone at Zone 3, Olujoda area of Ado-Ekiti.
I quickly took a taxi to Olujoda. I met two men at the junction of Zone 3. When they ascertained I was the one who spoke to them on the phone, they gave me the phone. When I asked about my husband, they said I would see him if I followed a path there.
As I was leaving, I overheard them saying: ‘The man was not a robber but those people refused to listen. Seeing his wife confirmed that he was not a robber.’ By the time I turned round with intent to grab them and find out what happened, they had got on a motorbike and taken off. When I got to a bend, I saw my husband. He was on the ground, stark naked and with bruises and cuts all over his body.
Narrating the state she found him, she said
Some people and a policeman were there. I screamed and started rolling on the ground, ‘What happened? What did he do? This is my husband, the father of my three children.’ I kept screaming that he was a craftsman and a responsible person. The people there were confused as I was shouting. I could hear them saying they mistook him for a robber. Then they disappeared one after the other. But one of them said I should cover his nakedness and he used his clothes to cover him.
He was bleeding all over his body. His body had been battered but he was still gasping for breath at that point. Someone took pity on me, brought some water and poured it on his body, but he died thereafter.
Naijalog learnt that people around there called the police after her husband had been beaten to a pulp by some youths, who mistook him for a robber, although nothing was found on him, except his phone. We learnt some residents had told the policeman to take him away, but the policeman, on realising he could survive, said he could not take him and only did a video recording of the incident before he left. It was after the policeman left that she put some clothes on him. When he died, she raced to Ologede Police Station and told them what happened. The policemen came to the scene but there was nobody to arrest as everybody had disappeared,except for two landlords and two guys. They are the four persons in police custody.