Itunuoluwa Adesitmi is the son of an ICT consultant,Mr Michael Adesitimi, who was recently murdered in his residence at Okuta Elerinla Quarters, Akure, Ondo State. The young graduate tells PETER DADA the circumstances surrounding his father’s death, stressing that he and his mother now live in fear
ARe you the first child of the late Mr Michael Adesitimi?
I am his first son.
What do you do for a living?
I just finished from the Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti.
Where were you on the day of the attack that led to your dad’s death?
On that day, I was with a friend of mine, whom we finished from same secondary school at Alagbaka extension area. My mum called me around 11:30am and told me that the police brought her and my dad to the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital, Akure. She said my dad had died. I rushed out and got a bike to take me to the hospital.On getting to the hospital, I met my dad in a pool of blood.
What did your mum tell you happened to your dad?
She said they were both at home around 7.30pm on that Saturday.She went to the kitchen, prepared the dinner, they ate and were later in the living room watching TV. I think they heard knocks on the gate and my dad went out to check who was there. We used to have a gate-man but he left. He said his wife had a baby and he left.
As dad went out, my mum tried to peep through the window to know who was knocking. I know very well that my dad was very security-conscious and he wouldn’t have opened the gate for just anyone if he couldn’t tell who it was by their voice. We have all become particularly security-conscious after my younger sister was killed in January this year. The assailants jumped through the window to kill her. So, since then we have always been security-conscious. Since that incident happened, we made it a habit to go round the house like three times, checking to be sure no one was lurking around.
Actually, I no longer stay with them. Dad and mum stayed alone. I only come to visit them every now and then. So,on that night, my mum said my dad opened the gate and immediately he did, the people at the gate forcefully got in and surrounded him. One of them had a gun, while the other carried a bag.
How many of them did your mum see?
She said she saw two people but couldn’t see their faces because of the distance and because it was in the night. She said while they were approaching the door into the house, they were asking my dad: ‘Where are the documents?’ And immediately she heard that, she had to tiptoe to the backyard through the backdoor and jump over the fence to escape into our neighbour’s compound. When she got to the other side, she alerted the neighbours, and they called the police immediately. Some policemen came but they didn’t enter the house. They took my mum back to Okuta Elerinla Police Station, which is not far from our house, to get her statement. When they got back to our house, the assailants had already left. They found my dad in a pool of blood. He was hacked to death by those people.
Which documents do you think the assailants were asking your dad for?
My dad doesn’t have any house in Akure. The only place we’ve been having issues of documents with someone is in Ibadan. My dad was in Ibadan last month where he presented the documents at the office of the state’s commissioner in charge of land. My dad presented the C of O. The government had justified our case in Ibadan; they said we are the rightful owner of the land. My dad called me the week before the attack and said he was looking for N600,000 so that the government could go destroy everything built on the land. We learnt somebody had already sold the land to another person.That was why my dad and mum went to Ibadan in September. Since then, they had been home, trying to look for the money that government demanded to put things in order. Recently, people from Ibadan called us to say they had started working on the land. The land is along Eleyele-Sango Road.
Have you also been to the land?
Of course, yes, but I can’t go to Ibadan right now. We have people over there helping us on the issue and the government has already taken over the land.
Beyond the issue of land, do you think your dad had any disagreement with some persons?
I don’t know if my dad had issues with any family or friends because he didn’t discuss family issues with me. One thing I know is that my dad wouldn’t have opened the gate if he didn’t recognise or know who was there. There must be someone among the assistants that my dad knew or recognised before he decided to open the gate.
What steps have the police taken on the case?
I think they are delaying things. We have not heard anything serious from the police. I want them to take this matter seriously and I want the government to help us because they (the killers) are after us and we don’t know who their next target is.
My younger sister and dad were killed this year in similar circumstances. All the responsibilities are now on me. How do I cope? What do they want me to do? Going to the police, they will ask me to bring this and that. The police aren’t taking the necessary steps. These people (killers) are not ready to stop because they are after something and I know that they have not yet got it. I know my dad wouldn’t have given them what they were looking for.
No one has any documents; the documents are with government, so I don’t know what they are looking for. I don’t know who is working hand in hand with them. I don’t know what I want to do again; I have called on everyone I can. We just need the government and the security agencies to do something about this matter because this is a serious matter. The murder case of my sister was in January, 2022 and now my dad in October 2022. We are living in fear now. We want justice; we want protection.
What have the police found out about your sister’s assassination?
At the State CID here in Akure, they said they arrested two people and they said those people are in prison but those suspects are still claiming they don’t know anything about it, even though they (police) caught them with my sister’s phone. They claimed that they saw the phone on the road. We were able to track them with the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) on the phone.
Did the assailants take anything away from your house on the night they killed your dad?
They didn’t take anything; they didn’t ransack the house. They didn’t take my dad’s phone; the phone is with me. My dad prevented them from going inside the house because he didn’t want them to get to where my mum was, not knowing that my mum had gone out through then backdoor.
You think your dad struggled with the assailants?
Yes, that was what happened. They held him down and stabbed him. There was no gunshot injury on him. He was stabbed; he had a cut in his mouth. There were about seven machete cuts on his head and one on his face.
What kind of a person was your dad?
My dad was a very intelligent, strong, hard-working man. He was also a devoted and God-fearing man. He wouldn’t fight anyone. Since I had grown to know my daddy, he didn’t get involved in any shady deal. He was a reliable man and he didn’t lie about anything. He focused on whatever he wanted to do.
What was his occupation?
He was a farmer. He was self-employed.He had his personal farm in the house, which is on three plots of land. He had his farm, rabbits and chickens in the house. He was also an ICT consultant and a computer engineer. He fixed faulty computers for people. He was not into politics.
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