A suspected evil landlord has been arrested in Lagos over alleged complicity in the murder of his tenant on Monday night. The landlord, Akinrinlade Adebayo, his wife and two of his friend’s children, Dada and Samuel Anaeto were nabbed in the early hours of Tuesday following their alleged role in the alleged murder of his tenant, Uche Michael.
According to eye witnesses’ accounts, the victim was lured out of his apartment by Adebayo under the pretext that a sewage pipe from his apartment was broken and the deceased must have been responsible for the damage. The landlord, according to neighbours, had vowed that the victim would be carried out of his house dead if he did not quit his apartment on No 40, Church Street in Aboru area of Alimosho Local Government even before the expiration of his one and half year tenancy. His first son,
Tope Adebayo, now on the run
after alleged active participation in the killing of late Michael was said to have enlisted the support of his friends – the two children of Ananeto in the dastard act. As the landlord was accusing the late tenant of breaking the pipe, Tope and his gang members who were having a party in front of the house did not waste time in descending on the victims and his household with guns, bottle and machetes.
The deceased’s wife, Ngozi Michael gave the chilling account: “The landlord said my husband was the one who defecated and flushed the toilet. My husband said no, he did not do anything like that. “Before I knew what was happening, the boys pounced on my husband. They said they were going to finish him off today. He was running from them but they were pursuing him. They smashed his head with bottles.
They were hitting him all over the body. The landlord was watching as blood was gushing out of his head. “He was drowning in the pool of his own blood and he was asking ‘What is my offence?’ but they were not ready to listen. I was crying and shouting. They started beating me too. They dragged and kicked me on the floor. “When they discovered that my husband could not talk again, they moved into our apartment and ransacked it. They took our money away and scattered our television.” She explained that her husband was later rushed to the hospital but his corpse was brought back. Son of the deceased, Ifeanyi Michael, who has been confined to his seat for some time by paralysis watched painfully as the assailants were battering his father. “I was watching but I could not move.
They pushed me from the chair but one of them said they should leave me because my father was the target. They scattered everything in our apartment and took away money that my daddy kept to pay for another apartment because of the trouble here,” he said. One of the suspects, Samuel confessed when he was arrested that he and the brother participated in battering the victim to death but he regretted that he died because they never intended to kill him.
All the suspects arrested are being detained at Oke-Odo Police Station as at press time. Daily Sun investigation revealed that the landlord had been having a running battle with the late Mr. Michael in a bid to force him out of the premises, even when his tenancy was still running. A close family relation and cousin to the deceased, Ndubuisi Odunze, explained to Daily Sun that the deceased was given quit notice by the landlord barely a year after he moved into the apartment.
According to Odunze, his late uncle was given a quit notice through one lawyer. “I advised him to engage a lawyer to reply the quit notice which he did. It was barely a year he moved in. “Later one Mr Anaeto, a friend to the landlord collaborated with my uncle’s landlord and took him to Mediation Centre to sign an agreement. When he told me about the development, I asked him to contact his lawyer. His lawyer now told him to allow him follow the matter legally.
“However, the landlord was not happy about the mediation arrangement. He and his family eventually launched a physical attack on my uncle about three months later. “On March 30, 2013, the landlord told him that if he did not want to leave there now, he would be carried out there dead,” he said.
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