Three weeks ago, suspected members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) attacked a Dangote Cement Company trailer returning from the company’s deport in Orlu, Imo State. The driver and two driver’s assistants were killed and their remains burnt. Daily Trust on Sunday traced the families of the victims as they mourn their losses.
Halliru Rabiu thought he was making his family proud when he pleaded to replace his brother as a driver’s helper, working under Alhassan Saidu, one of the drivers working under the Dangote Cement Company in Obajana, Kogi State. It was on a Sunday morning and Halliru had met his father, Malam Rabiu, at his okra farm in Panmadina, a community in Zaria, Kaduna State to ask for his blessings. His older brother who often followed Alhassan, a popular trailer driver had been indisposed, drying and preserving his recently harvested maize. So, Halliru, who was a commercial motorcyclist before the recent ban by the Kaduna State Government, decided to cash in on the opportunity which he though could earn him some extra money. With his father’s blessings and his wife’s prayers, Halliru joined Alhassan Saidu and Umaru Abdulyasar, a retired but recently recalled trailer driver for the long journey to Obajana.
However, three days later, their families in Panmadina were shocked to hear that the three had been gruesomely murdered after they offloaded cement at the Dangote Cement Depot in Orlu, Imo State, and were returning to Obajana.
Relatives say suspected members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), on rampage, had intercepted their trailer along Orlu-Ihiala road and after profiling them, killed them and set their corpses ablaze.
Grief had enveloped the farming community of Panmadina in Kaduna’s Zaria Local Government Area on the day our correspondent visited. Residents of the closely-knitted community, now more bonded by fear and tragedy, claimed the decomposing remains of their children had been returned to them, forcing them to arrange a funeral prayer around 2am.
“We couldn’t call people to attend the Janazah and we couldn’t wait till the morning, we had to bury them around 2am. By 3.16am we had returned from the cemetery,” said Abdulyasar Shehu, the father of one of the victims.
For a community with as many as 30 youths working as trailer drivers, some with the Dangote Cement Company and conveying goods to various parts of the country, elders say it is time to take action on unprovoked and targeted killings in the South East. “We have lost children in the past but the killing of Halliru, Alhassan and Umar is by far the most gruesome and wicked. They were not just killed, their corpses were abused,” said Aliyu Shehu, an elder in the community.
“We are all related, so what affects one, affects the other. This is not the first time such targeted killings are occurring in the South east but we continue to remain patient, we are living peacefully with the Igbos in Zaria and they enjoy a lot of privileges that our own people cannot enjoy in the east,” an angry Shehu said. He urged the government to put an end to all killings, while urging the Dangote Cement Company to compensate the families of the deceased.
Since news of their demise circulated, Mansur Saidu who also drives a Dangote trailer and is said to have been trained by his older brother, Alhassan Saidu, said he has remained edgy, fearing for his safety and those of other northeners conveying goods to the South east.
At Alhassan’s home where Daily Trust Saturday found Mansur together with their frail and aged mother…
