Controversy trails murder of SSS officer and family

Lying in their own blood within the compound were Garba Bello, 54; Habiba Garba, 40; Khalifa Garba, 14; Hafsat Garba, 15 and; Murjanatu Garba, 5.  Unlike in most mourning gatherings – where the mourners console the children of the deceased – in this case the two surviving sons of the family were not at hand […]

Lying in their own blood within the compound were Garba Bello, 54; Habiba Garba, 40; Khalifa Garba, 14; Hafsat Garba, 15 and; Murjanatu Garba, 5.

 Unlike in most mourning gatherings – where the mourners console the children of the deceased – in this case the two surviving sons of the family were not at hand for mourners to condole. While the eldest son of the family, Bello Garba Bello, is the principal suspect in the murder, his younger brother, 11-year-old Faruq is under what police termed “protective custody”. The police said they would release him when the dust settles.

 While many people earlier pegged different hypotheses to the murders, other came to the conclusion that being an SSS officer, he might have angered someone in the course of discharging his duties.

 A family source argued that given the secrecy that shrouds his job, he might be in the possession of some vital information which his killers thought he would transmit to his children since his ailment appeared to be terminal. Late Garba suffered a liver disease and was on a sick leave for over one month.

 The source revealed that some people in the area saw three jeeps with tinted glasses around the area earlier in the afternoon of the fateful day. “One of those who saw them said they spoke in Sokoto parlance when they stopped to buy cigarette,” said the source.

But the family spokesman had disparaged these hypotheses when he said that Garba was a nurse, serving at the medical department of Sokoto Command of the SSS.

 Our correspondent learnt that both the police and the SSS have almost foreclosed investigation into the matter and indication showed that they were of the belief that Bello, aka Baba, committed the murder alone without any accomplice.

Weekly Trust gathered that during the attack, the wife of the slain SSS official was said to have put a distress call to her elder sister, Hajiya Jummai, on her mobile phone and informed her that some hoodlums were trying to kill them.

While the family insists their son could not kill five people in one fell swoop, the police said it was possible for him to do that.

 Initially, the family spokesman Umar Danjani Hadejia said they family appreciated the level of commitment of the police and the SSS in the investigation. “We’re confident the police and SSS will fish out the culprits. They are very commitment to the investigation. They appealed to us to exercise a little patience and assured us that they would bring the culprits to book,” he said.

 The confident stance of the family suddenly changed after the police and SSS’s concluded after Baba’s confession that he was behind the killing of the parents and siblings. “Although we cannot rule out his involvement, we are confident that there might be accomplice,” he said.

The family also said immediately after the incident, they queried 11-year-old Farouk after his escape from the murder and did not implicate his brother. “He told us that somebody from the fence called one Aminu but we are dismayed to see something contrary in the Farouk’s statement with the SSS,” he said.

 The family therefore appealed to the SSS to release Farouk since they concluded that Baba committed the murder alone. “You can hold Baba since he is a suspect but you cannot hold Farouk. You should let him join his family,” he said.

In his confession before newsmen, Baba said, “I killed my parents and my siblings alone without the help of anybody. It was sad event. It was a great loss to our relations,” he said as he shook his head in regret, adding that he killed them while they were at the father’s sickbed.

 According to Baba, he used two knives in the kitchen and stabbed the family members and in the process his brother Farouk escaped and hid in the bathroom.

 Although he was unable to give coherent detail as to the sequence of the murder, he revealed that his ailing father died and then he killed the remaining family members. “I stabbed him after he died because I realised that life would be unbearable for the family members after our father’s death,” he said.

He noted that he refused to commit suicide because his 11-year-old brother was also alive. A security source however said the motive behind the young man’s act was because he wanted to inherit the house and few other assets of the father.

 Although the police said 11-year-old Farouk was under protective custody at the state SSS headquarters, this reporter was later granted access to him, where he said his brother was the only person who killed all the family members. Sitting cross-legged, Farouk narrated to our reporter that his brother was behind the whole killings and he saw nobody in the compound apart from the family members.

Exposing his stomach and arm to show stitches, Farouk, a student of FGC Sokoto, said his brother nearly stabbed him to death.

 When our reporter asked him about the seven people he earlier mentioned to his relations before the SSS took him to their custody, Farouk said his brother cooked the story of the seven hoodlums to him. “When I locked myself in the toilet, and he tried without success to open the door he gave up and issued a threat to me. Baba said if I ever disclosed that he was behind the killings he would kill me,” he said.

 On the person named Aminu, who Farouk earlier told his relations about, Farouk now said in the video that his brother guided him – when he was in the toilet – to say that somebody named Aminu was part of the murder.

 Farouk said when his brother was killing his parents and siblings, he could hear their screams but moments later all the screams faded. “When the screams faded, I could hear them gasping for breath the way a ram does when being slaughtered,” he said.

Some of Baba’s friends at the Physics Department of Kano University of Science and Technology said he dropped out from the department because of academic failure not because he engaged in any crime or drug abuse. “I don’t think Bello takes drugs. What I know about him is that he likes flashiness,” said the student who simply identified himself as Usman.

 The spokesman of the Kano Police Command SP Baba Mohammed Azare said although they did not foreclose investigation into the matter, they arrived at the conclusion that the eldest son of the SSS officer is the main suspect. SP Azare said the suspect did not make his confessions under duress. “Let me tell you, gone are the days that police torture suspect in order to get information. He made the confessions voluntarily,” he said. According to the police spokesman, many high profile murders have occurred in the state and the police never implicated the children of the killed person. “We never implicated the children of the late Isyaku Ibrahim, Abubakar Rimi, and Sheikh Ja’afar when they were killed,” he said. “So why start now?” The question hangs, even as more controversy swirls around the tragic incident.