Saheed Eluyera
So sad....A
man who seriously looked forward to having a great first wedding
anniversary, has ended up getting suffering a horrific tragedy. When Saheed and Funke Eluyera were taking their marital vows on
December 15, 2015, little did they know that, that joyful day was going
to be a sorrowful day a year after, as Saheed was murdered, on the first
anniversary of the wedlock.
He was allegedly murdered by cultists who were fighting each other at Orogba area of Ilesa, Osun State.
Saheed, 37, a B.Sc holder, a newspaper agent in the state, had
woken up on that day and posted on his face book page that he was going
to celebrate with his family; his wife and their seven-month-old twins.
Saturday Sun gathered that Saheed , who courted his wife for five
years before they got married, had waited long to marry because he
wanted to make enough money to raise his family in a comfortable
atmosphere.
According to his younger brother, Posi, who spoke to Saturday Sun,
Saheed the day his brother got married was so special to him and his
experience made him to become an advocate of early marriage.
“The day of the wedding was his best day, in his entire life,
my brother was a jovial person, but that day was special. He danced and
was happy.
“Since the day he got married, he would always advise me that
marriage is good and that I should go and get a wife. He said that the
joy of seeing his children cry for his attention or the peace of having a
good wife and the joy of not having to be stressed to make food after
the day’s work were the reasons he loved marriage. His wife has never
complained,” Posi said.
His death has thrown his family into mourning. Cry was the chorus.
Wailing was the style. Sympathizers were uncontrollable as they entered
in groups. Their two -room apartment was filled to capacity.
Saheed’s wife, Funke who was also wailing as at the time of visit,
struggled to run to nowhere. Although, a graduate of Accounting, Funke,
who operates a sewmistress business, could not mutter any word. When she
tried to, she could only recount her husband’s promises to her, before
he was killed.
“Who will train my children? You promised that Taye (boy) will
be a doctor and Kehinde (girl) will be a lawyer and we will grow old
together,” she shouted.
Speaking further on the circumstances that led to his death, the
deceased’s younger brother, Posi, said he did not know why his brother
would be targeted because he was well known as a peacemaker. True to his
nature, Posi said if Saheed knew that the fight involved cultists, he
might not have intervened the way he did.
“On that day he was killed, it was his one year anniversary
(sic), he had already told his wife to dress up the twins that they were
going to celebrate after he was done with the day’s work.
"He was a very lovely and jovial person. His smile was
contagious. He did not like to cheat people. He was a philanthropist by
default. He rendered help even when it was to his own disadvantage. He
was an easy-going person. His routine was from work to mosque then home.
He had no enemies in the state.
“He went to Wesley College to supply them and headed to a
barbing saloon to clean up, on his way, he discovered that the
motorcycle was having some fault and decided to repair it, since he was
going out with his family later. It was at the junction where he was
repairing his motorcycle that he saw some men, engaging in a brutal
fight. Then he decided to intervene. But the fight became fierce. In the
process, they hit him with an object right at the centre of his head,
and he lay there dead.
“It was later on that we found out that the two men that were
fighting were rival cult members. I think he didn’t know this, it was
when he heard why they were fighting that he wanted to run like every
other person, but he was hit by them. People who were there, didn’t help
him because of the group that were fighting,” said Posi.
Saheed and Funke Eluyera
When Saturday Sun querried if Saheed had made some “dangerous”
friends in the course of his job as a newspaper agent, Posi said that it
was not possible. He revealed that they inherited the business from
their father and have been running it for 13 years.
“The job that he is doing is the same thing that I am doing. It
was the job our father did. When he was retiring he told us to take it
over. He was well known. He had the mind to intervene because of his
reputation as a peacemaker. If we are not enjoying it or see the job as a
risky one, we wouldn’t have agreed to do it. He did the job for over
13years,” he said.
He also told Saturday Sun that since the news of the death of
Saheed, was broken to the parents, Saheed’s father, Pa Eluyera, had not
been himself. He was said to have fainted and was revived twice, to the
extent that the family is afraid of the consequence to the man’s health.
“We buried him because of how our parent was taking it. Since
his death, my father has fainted twice and now we can’t leave our father
alone because he might faint and nobody will be there to help him. If
we had left him in the mortuary, our parent will not stop the tears from
flowing,” Posi observed.
Family wants justice
The Eluyera family is pleading with the state government and the
Commissioner of Police, Fimihan Adeoye, to find their brother’s killer.
“When we got to the State Crime Investigation Department, SCID,
on Tuesday, the police said that they have not arrested anybody,
therefore, we should go ahead with his burial process. They promised
that they will be searching for the culprits. The cult clashes here in
Osogbo are too much. They have been killing people anyhow. We now live
in fear.
“We plead with the state government to please find our
brother’s killers and protect the rest of us that are alive. The
children of my brother might suffer now, because there is no way anybody
could be like their father,” Posi, added.
Apart from the cult clash that took Saheed’s life, there was
another case a day before in Osogbo where about two cultists were also
killed.
Meanwhile the Police Commissioner, Fimihan promised to battle the increasing cult clashes, in the state.
The Sun
No comments:
Post a Comment