How I killed Yobe Islamic scholar – Suspect
A soldier, Lance Corporal John Gabriel, on Wednesday, narrated how he killed Sheikh Goni Aisami-Gashua, a prominent Islamic scholar in Yobe State.
Mr Gabriel told journalists at the Yobe Police Command office that he went to the checkpoint to steal.
He confessed to killing the cleric with a gun he hid inside a folded military camp bed after the cleric gave him a lift to Jaji Maji, in the Karasuwa Local Government Area of the state.
“We were approaching Jaji-Maji, so I told him (the cleric) that I was hearing a sound under the vehicle and he said he was suspecting something under it and he wanted to park and check.
READ ALSO: Gunmen murder Islamic scholar in Yobe
“After he parked by the roadside, he checked around and I followed him. After checking, he couldn’t find anything.
“It was a ploy to make him come down from his vehicle; meanwhile, I had removed my rifle and fixed the magazine when he was under the vehicle. When he didn’t find anything under the vehicle, I told him to check the back tyre, he consented, and while doing so, I pointed my rifle at him and he asked me what he had done to me and I responded that he did not do anything to me.
“He asked further, ‘Do you want to kill me?’ And I said, ‘No I don’t want to kill you.’ So, he kept quiet and I fired a warning shot, thinking he would be scared and run away. But he didn’t run away. However, as he made to enter his vehicle and ran to the side of the driver, I fired the second shot at the body of the car and one of the bullets penetrated the vehicle and killed him.
“I dragged his body off the main road into the bush. I have never done this before,” Gabriel narrated.
The police said following the investigation, the suspect and his accomplice, Adamu Gideon, will be in court.
Meanwhile, a popular Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi, who reacted to the killing of Alhaji Aisami, said the military should sanitise its recruitment process to avoid recruiting persons with dubious characters.
“The latest murder of Sheikh Goni Aisami by two soldiers; Lance Corporal John Gabriel and Adamu Gideon, both of the 241 Recce Battalion, Nigerian Army, Nguru, Yobe State, calls for immediate action.
“There is a need for the security apparatus to flush out the moles in its rank and files. Their action is apparently armed robbery.
“So, the security apparatus should not deny the presence of criminals in its ranks. Armed robbers, gun runners, drug pushers, rapists, and murderers, just name it, we have men in uniforms committing these crimes,” Mr Gumi said.
“It’s easy for these criminals to get admitted into the forces because of corruption associated with such conscription. The situation is alarming, with two hundred thousand naira and above; almost anybody can confidently get an offer into our security apparatus. There is an urgent need to put a check and balance system to check these detestable occurrences.
“To avoid these ugly encounters, the armed forces and police should review all personnel to ascertain their guarantors are genuine, and in the future, any guarantor should be accountable for the actions of his guarantee.
“Every soldier should have the sanction of a recognised traditional leader or an established clergy besides the required civil servant or member of the armed forces as referee.
“And until the forces flush out these criminals, we are yet to see the end of these atrocities committed by the unscrupulous elements of these forces,” Gumi said.
Late Aisami’s murder is similar to that of one Bashir that happened some years back.
According to the story shared by Kanoonline, Bashir’s death happened one morning, when a childhood friend of his came to their house and informed him about a piece of land at Damaturu in Yobe State and his intention to sell the said piece of land to Bashir.
It was said that Bashir had started stepping into his father’s Estate & Property Managers (Agent) business.
As it has been his usual business, he accompanied his friend to Damaturu while his friend took over the driver’s seat of Bashir’s car. Unknown to the innocent Bashir, the can drink he was offered by his friends was adulterated by some tablets and within a few minutes, he started dozing off.
Bashir only woke up at Damagum about 25 kilometres from Potiskum. He was a little bit confused and the effect of the drug was still fresh, however, he managed to ask why they were at Damagum instead of Damaturu.
In a swift, the other culprit at the back sit hit Bashir hard with the car’s jerk (or wheel spanner) and he fell and became unconscious; they then parked the car and continued hitting Bashir harder and harder until he died. They dug and dumped his body in nearby farmland and zoomed off to Jos in Plateau State.
It was at Jos where they tried to sell off Bashir’s car that it occurred to them that the original documents of the car were not inside the car. So, the culprit came back to Maiduguri alone leaving behind the other culprit with the car. He came straight to Bashir’s house and when Bashir’s wife saw him, she asked what the matter was because they left the house the previous day and she had yet to hear from her husband. The culprit told her that, they were caught by the police along the road, and in fact, they have held Bashir with the car. That he was sent to come and collect the original documents of the car.
As they were talking, Bashir’s wife noticed her husband’s wristwatch on his friend’s hand, and also her mobile phone which her husband uses. She quickly and silently called her inlaw to come forward and that was how the guy was arrested by the police, and after a long interrogation, he admitted to killing Bashir.
He took them to where they dumped his dead body. The body was later exhumed and photographs were taken. The other culprits were pursued and arrested.
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