Family, relatives of murdered principal recount ordeal

Family members and other relatives of the principal of the Abuja Rehabilitation Centre, Bala Tsoho Musa, who was murdered penultimate Friday near his house within the facility located in Kuchiko community, Bwari in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), are still mourning.

Comrade, as he was fondly called, was murdered by a yet to be identified assailant, who smashed his head with a log of wood, leaving his lifeless body in a wheelchair in front of his house.

Musa was the pioneer principal of the centre, a position he held for over two decades.

The institution was set up by a former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir el-Rufa’i, as a vocational training centre for beggars and other people with special needs within the territory.

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Comrade, who hailed from Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State, attended Government Teachers’ College, Zawan in Jos and later proceeded to the University of Jos, where he obtained a first degree and later a master’s.

He was buried the following day after a funeral prayer at the palace of the Sarkin Bwari. He left an elderly mother, three wives and six children behind.

Lamenting the death of her husband, the senior wife and mother of three of his children, Lauratu Abdullahi, said, “He was with my co-wives in the sitting room up to 9pm before leaving for his usual routine of moving round the centre. He finally settled at the veranda of the house as usual. His aide who assisted him on the wheelchair left the house along with him before moving to where he slept within the centre.

“It was a female deaf person who assisted us as housemaid that raised the alarm about his death on her way back to where she sleeps. She saw him in a pool of blood and raised the alarm that attracted our attention. When we ran to the scene of the incident, it was really a devastating sight seeing him in such condition.”

His second wife, Balkisu Haruna, recalled how they met at Jos Rehabilitation Centre before they eventually got married some years later. She described him as a man of good gestures who touched the lives of many people positively.

“May the Almighty Allah forgive his shortcomings and grant him Aljannah,” she prayed.

Also, Zainab Muhammad, Musa’s third wife, who has a child with him in their almost three-year-old marriage, said her late husband served his country diligently, adding that he was murdered on active duty. She called on the government to look after the family he left behind.

Also speaking on the incident, one of the deceased’s younger brothers, Ibrahim Tsoho Musa, who lives close to Bwari town, said Comrade’s first wife called him on phone some minutes past 10pm to inform him of the incident.

“On my way coming, I came across a police van heading towards Bwari General Hospital with my brother. They wanted doctors to examine him and ascertain whether he was still alive. On identifying them, I immediately turned back and moved towards the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“I wanted to take his remains to his home that night in preparation for the janazah prayer the next day, but the police turned down the request, insisting that it should be kept at the mortuary. So we took it to a private mortuary attached to a church clinic within Bwari town as the general hospital did not have such facility.

“Thereafter, we returned to his house with the policemen for investigation. They searched the entire environment looking for any clue that could lead to the arrest of any suspect.

“My late brother had four mobile phones and two network wifi, but none of the gadgets could be located. The investigation led us up to 3am as the detectives invited every staff member of the institution for interrogation.

At the end of the exercise, the security officials left with five people who were on duty that night, as well as members of staff who live within the centre,” he narrated.

Daily Trust gathered that those arrested that night were three of the deceased’s relatives – his cousin, one Bala Tanko, his younger brother who serves as an instructor at the centre and doubles as imam, and one Garba Idris. The aide to the principal who moved him in his wheelchair, who happens to be the younger brother to one of his wives, was also arrested.

A sacked guard who reportedly had confrontation with the deceased two days before the incident was also arrested. He was said to have demanded his two months salaries following his sack, which was not immediately available; hence he insisted that he would remain at the centre. Two security men on duty – a policeman and a member of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps attached to the centre – were also arrested but released after they gave their statements.

A source at the centre, however, disclosed that at the instance of a senior official at the FCT Social Development Secretariat, two people serving as caregivers at the male and female hostels respectively were not arrested. The senior official had insisted that there would be no one to look after the institution if the caregivers were also taken away.

As at Tuesday, all the four arrested suspects were still at the Bwari Police Division when our reporter visited.

Hajiya Fatima Idris, the mother of the late principal, who arrived from Jos where she lives, in the company of other relatives following the incident, narrated how she nearly missed communicating with him on that faithful Friday as he did not respond to her calls on two occasions. Holding back her tears, she narrated, “It was later, about 9pm that he put a call across to me, and after realising that I was already sleepy, he terminated it, with a promise to call back the following day.

“Unknown to us, that would be our last communication. I have lost someone who never said no to my demands. I wish him Allah’s forgiveness.”

One of his relatives also disclosed that during his lifetime, Comrade Musa, who relocated to Abuja following the first ethno-religious crisis in Jos, started as an iron smelter in the city, a profession he taught students of the centre.

Daily Trust reports that Musa engaged many of his relatives as instructors at the centre, where people with special needs were taught and empowered with technical abilities to set up their businesses. Unfortunately, as time went on, the centre lost its glory as it merely became a detention facility for different sets of people arrested from the streets of the FCT, including teenage drug addicts handed over to the authorities by their parents.

A source told our reporter that “If the government really wants to carry out investigation into the principal’s murder, they should go beyond investigating people at the grassroots; there is the need to go after senior officials who have the responsibility to supervise the centre,” he said.