*DSS Keep Hiding Abdullah Hassan
Former Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives and the current Chief of Staff (CoS) to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila will continue to remain a distracted personality until justice is done to the family of a newspaper vendor who was shot dead by a personnel of Department of State Service (DSS) attached to him who is identified as Abdullah Hassan, as the soul of the dead, Ifeanyichukwu Okereke, is now shouting from his grave over his abandoned family
By Udoka Ekeleme, Abuja
Nene Okereke, a widow with two kids, is in deep agony. Speaking to Tentacle from her Suleja, Niger State home, one could see pain and shock written all over her face and body. Mrs Okereke disclosed that she has always been in shock in the past four years. Her life is practically surrounded by uncertainties.
Since November 2020, Nene said wherever she goes, everything she does, she will always get enveloped in shock. November 19, 2020, is the day she would not stop cursing. For the rest of her life, she would continue to regret why she witnessed that day which has afflicted her with constant high blood pressure.
At present, Nene is suffering from hypertension. It was gathered that her doctors have collected all her little savings while trying to save her from the deadly ailment.
But who are behind Nene’s present ordeal? Femi Gbajabiamila, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who is now the Chief of Staff (CoS) to President Bola Tinubu, and one of the security aides attached to him by the Department of State Service (DSS) while he was the Speaker, identified as Abdullah Hassan, are behind the poor widow’s endless suffering.
Neighbors of Nene volunteered that she is dying silently by the day. According to them, she is facing multiple tragedy of being a young widow without a gainful means of livelihood, she is being hypertensive, yet she has no resources to train her two little children.
More hurting to Nene is the realization that the trigger-happy DSS personnel who shot and killed her husband for no offense committed, or provocation of any form, has been let off the hook by the secret police management. Again, her heart breaks when she remembers how her father in-law, who should have been assisting her and her children, died of heart attack the same month her husband was killed in 2020 due to the shock he received by the death of his son. Thus father and son were buried same day. Yet Gbajabiamila has shut his doors against Nene and her husband’s family.
HOW IT HAPPENED
On November 19, 2020, a security aide from the DSS attached to the convoy of Gbajabiamila while he was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Hassan inexplicably shot a newspaper vendor identified as Ifeanyichukwu Okereke, twice in the head at the Federal Secretariat, Garki, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja at a newsstand when Gbajabiamila’s convoy was trapped in a traffic jam. Okereke died on the spot. The only offence of the late Okereke was that he walked closer to Gbajabiamila’s convoy flaunting his newspapers and hoping to get patronage from the convoy.
But eye witness accounts had it that when Gbajabiamila’s convoy was stopped by the traffic lights, newspaper vendors sighted his car and began to hail him as is their custom whenever a high profile politician was stopped by traffic lights. Elated Gbajabiamila had opened his car window and pulled out some cash for the vendors, Okereke who was the leader of the vendors in the area, moved closer to collect the cash when Hassan jumped out of one of the escort vehicles and shot him in the head from behind. Immediately, the traffic lights passed the then Speaker and his convoy, and they zoomed off, leaving Okereke in his pool of blood.
When his vendor colleagues rushed Okereke to the Secretariat Clinic, the clinic refused to admit him. He was later taken to the National Hospital, Abuja where he was confirmed dead.
Painfully, late Okereke’s second child’s naming ceremony was scheduled to hold the following day, November 20, 2020. He had put all things in place for the ceremony before the trigger-happy Hassan sent him to early grave. Okereke never lived to name his second child.
According to eye witness accounts, Gbajabiamila was to come back to the newspaper vendors’ site at the Federal Secretariat hours after Okereke was shot and begged them for forgiveness, but also promised to take care of the family of Okereke, and to ensure that justice would be done to assuage their anger and that of family of Okereke. Gbajabiamila also issued a statement condemning the killing immediately, suspended Hassan from his security, and handed him over to the DSS for proper investigation and prosecution.
Gbajabiamila further promised to open a trust fund account to fund the academic training of the two children of Okereke, while the House of Representatives offered the family the sum of N20 million for the burial of Okereke and his father who died out of shock shortly after he was told his son was shot dead by a security guard. Both Okereke and his father were buried same day.
Gbajabiamila also fulfilled his promise to open a trust fund account for the children. But since the account was opened four years ago, only the initial N400,000 which was paid into the account at the time it was opened, is the only money Gbajabiamila had paid into the account. The trust fund account has been abandoned, according to investigation.
It was also learnt that Gbajabiamila does not get close to Okereke’s wife and children, or any of their family members since the incident occurred, either in person or proxy. He does not call Nene Okereke, the wife of late Okereke to know how she and her kids are faring.
On the part of the DSS which promised to conduct an orderly room trial of Hassan, the secret police agency is alleged to have set one of its own, Hassan, free, instead the DSS had allegedly redeployed him to an unidentified location. On Wednesday May 5, 2024, this reporter spent several hours at the headquarters of the DSS with the hope to meet and speak with its spokesperson, Mr. Peter Afunanya. But all efforts made to see Afunanya failed as his office said he was very busy.
Similarly, efforts to reach Gbajabiamila failed as his only phone number available to this reporter was saying switched off each time it was called. On their part, newspaper vendors at the Federal Secretariat, Garki, Abuja, have vowed that they would continue to take necessary actions to bring justice to the family of Okereke.
