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.
