Door and frame of death-How 22-year-old man was stabbed to death in a Jos community

For 22-year-old Ziya’ulhaq Muhammad, popularly known as Mamman, Thursday the 10th of September would have been one of those ordinary days with the usual events unfolding as the day gets older from seconds to minutes and eventually to hours. Never in his wildest imagination had he thought that he would be involved in an argument […]

For 22-year-old Ziya’ulhaq Muhammad, popularly known as Mamman, Thursday the 10th of September would have been one of those ordinary days with the usual events unfolding as the day gets older from seconds to minutes and eventually to hours. Never in his wildest imagination had he thought that he would be involved in an argument that would lead to his death. Even as they walked to retrieve a door and its frame that belonged to them from an alleged culprit who stole it from a site they were working on, he never thought that the unfortunate incident that happened would occur.

At a settlement called` Yar Kasuwa along `Yan Shanu – Rikkos road in Jos, Mamman and his friend (name undisclosed) on that day arrived at their project site (a dilapidated building) given to them as a contract to pull down. According to Ibrahim Muhammad, Mamman’s brother, they had been doing such projects where they would be asked to pull down a dilapidated building and keep as part of their wages some of the things they found in the building. “Usually the contract was given to his friend and he would help the friend and anything they found such as windows, doors, rails and any useful thing was consider as part of their wages”.

They discovered that a door was removed, probably after they had left the site on Wednesday. On inquiry, they were told that one Mustafa (Dan Hajiya) was the one who took the door and its frame. Coincidently enough, Dan Hajiya’s house was just a stone throw from the site which confirmed their suspicious on him. “It appears that whoever gave Mamman and his friend that information must have seen Mustafa committing the act, if not there was no reason why they should accuse him”, a source said.

When Mamman and his friend met Mustafa and demanded for the door on hearing the accusation levelled against him, he became angry and brought out a knife, rushed at Mamman and stabbed him on his left rib twice, an eye witnesse told our correspondent. “After stabbing Mamman, he rushed at his friend and kicked him bringing him down while Mamman was lying in the pool of his own blood”, he added.

According to Ibrahim (Mamman’s brother), “I was at home when one of our neighbours, a woman, came shouting. She told us that Mamman was stabbed by someone and had been rushed to the hospital.”

Further investigation confirmed that Mamman was later taken to Jama’a Nursing Home(a close by hospital) where he was attended to by a doctor, “When I reached the hospital, I saw that they had placed him on drip, but he was still struggling from the pain sometimes upsetting the drip, even from the blood I saw on the floor of the hospital I knew that he had lost a lot of blood, and despite the fact that they had bandaged the wound , whenever he breathed heavily the bandage would pull out and blood would be gushing”, his brother recalled.

With so much loss of blood, Mamman did not last much longer, he died at about 12 noon the entire area into a mourning mood. Mamman was after the usual funeral rites, taken to the grave yard for burial.

However, another version of the incident was that Mustafa was supposed to be part of the contract at the site. Somewhere along the line, the owner of the house gave it to Mamman’s friend only because he was experienced in such work. “That did not go down well with Mustafa, but honestly, I didn’t know what transpired after that, until I heard that Mamman was stabbed by Mustafa”, an anonymous source who lives at Tudun Talakawa said.

After the burial, the repercussion of Mamman’s death began to emanate after Mustafa  was taken in by the police at one of his friend’s house. Youths in their dozens, matched to Mustafa’s house, chased the people out of itand reduced the house to rubbles. “Most of the youths were not even in any way related to Mamman; it was just a spontaneous reaction, which was aggravated by  the way he was murdered in cold blood, because Mamman was a gentle man. He never got involved in trouble, he was a well brought up person who always minded his own business”, one Bala, who claimed to know Mamman said.

A community leader in the area, Malam Surajo Mansur, described the incident as unfortunate and further attributed it to the degeneration of societal values. “This incident shows how our society is in  danger, where someone will carry a weapon and slay his fellow human being. This shows a typical example of  how the society is degenerating and it is mostly as a result of the lack of proper upbringing by parents.  Parents should not only think of providing their family with the basic necessities of life, but they should know that it is their responsibility also to train an upright citizen who will be an asset to the society not  a liability”.

According to Ibrahim, Mamman had finished his secondary school only last June and had written his Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) where he was planning to proceed to a higher institution to further his educational pursuit.  

The Plateau State police command, through its Public Relations Officer, Muhammed Lerama, had stated Mustafa, who was arrested, would be made to face the law for his action.