SALLAH MURDERS MOST FOUL!

If you haven’t, below is an extract of one of the several newspaper reports of the sorry story: “The eldest son of the slain assistant director of the State Security Service (SSS) yesterday confessed to the murder of his father, mother and three siblings without the help of any accomplice…23-year-old Bello Garba Bello, popularly known […]

If you haven’t, below is an extract of one of the several newspaper reports of the sorry story:

“The eldest son of the slain assistant director of the State Security Service (SSS) yesterday confessed to the murder of his father, mother and three siblings without the help of any accomplice…23-year-old Bello Garba Bello, popularly known as Baba, said [among other things]: ‘I killed my parents and my siblings alone without the help of anybody. It was a sad event. It was a great loss to our relations.’” Sad event indeed! He can say that again.

The second most shocking revelation about this mass murder (of which more shocking details may yet emerge), is that the young man, whatever his state of mind was, did this, in his own words, “Because I realised that life would be unbearable for the family members after our father’s death.” If this was true, then the boy was definitely a goner, playing God, Who had warned parents in the Qur’an against foeticide and infanticide for fear of penury, not to talk of parenticide, or whatever these murders should be called.

So perhaps the young man was committing Euthanasia, the Greek term Wikipedia says, “refers to the practice of ending a life in a manner which relieves pain and suffering.” So he was trying to ‘save’ his family from future suffering by meting out to them an earlier one!

Two other things have come to light: One; that…“[a] security official…said Baba was under the effect of drugs when they arrested him on Monday morning. Many neighbours also corroborated the security official’s remark, saying Baba was a drug addict…” And Two; that…“Baba dropped out from the Physics Department at the Kano University of Science and Technology, Wudil…”

In discussing “Top Ten Most Horrifying and Gruesome Murders”, a website called Crunkish (www.crunkish.com), states that: “Out of all the species in the world, only man has the capacity to be inhuman. The ability to be cruel to members of the same species and to rationalize this cruelty are traits that are heavily underlined by news reports of gruesome murders and bloody rampages…”

When it came to listing the top ten most gruesome murders in the past couple of centuries, Crunkish gave one Lizzie Borden Number One. She murdered her parents back in 1893. (Yes, 1893). Crunkish says: “Lizzie Borden took an axe. Gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one…A reporter who went to the crime scene even described the massacre to have been absolutely ‘sickening.’ Her father’s face was hacked to pieces with his left eye dug out. There was also a huge wound on the man’s temple as if his skull had been pounded continuously with the blunt part of an axe…”

Now, surely, this so-called Baba has broken Lizzie’s record which had stood for more than a century. He not only killed his father and mother, just like Lizzie did, he added for effect three of his siblings. And Lizzie used an axe, a primitive weapon of yore; Baba used ‘two kitchen knives’. A’uzu billah for such weapons so near to hand! Baba must now be Number One.

Returning to the matter of drugs and, especially ‘dropping out of school’, there is an eerie resemblance between Baba’s life and the lives of the Menendez Brothers who, according to Wikipedia, “murdered their own parents on August 20, 1989 in the US. Joseph Menendez and his brother Erik murdered their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in Beverly Hills, California, using shotguns…”

Though unlikely that Baba had read of Lizzie or the Menendez Brothers, the parallels are quite interesting. According to Wikipedia’s account, one of the Menendez Brothers “was placed on academic probation at Princeton University for poor grades and disciplinary probation, and he eventually dropped out after allegations of plagiarism.”

“The father was shot point-blank in the back of the head. The mother, awakened by the shots, sprang from the couch and made a run for the hallway but was shot in the leg. She then slipped in her own blood. When she fell, she was shot several times. Both parents were then shot in the kneecap to make the crime appear mob related. The brothers then drove off… when they returned home, one of them called the police and cried, ‘Somebody killed my parents!’ Initially, the police did not consider the brothers as suspects…”

Almost exactly three years ago (September 1, 2007 to be exact) on this same page, in a piece titled ‘When Youths Resort to Murder’, we lamented how many of our youths had turned to violence. To refresh, we said then:

“…on Wednesday August 29, [2007]…eight persons were paraded for allegedly killing the Caretaker Committee Chairman of Minjibir Local Government in Kano State, Alhaji Auwal Jibrin Abdakaya. Parading the suspects in his office, Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro said the suspects conspired among themselves and killed the Chairman…for allegedly failing to fulfill a promise he made to eight political party thugs. The late Abdakaya was alleged to have hired the thugs to help him protect ballot boxes during the April polls, and was alleged to have promised the leader of the gang a motorcycle [which he failed to redeem]. They planned to embarrass the Chairman for reneging on his promise.

“’They set out armed with a locally-made pistol, shot the chairman, held hostage and wounded those in the house, while one of them raped a 17-year-old girl before they left,’ IGP Okiro said. One of the alleged murderers…got N1, 000 as his share of the money collected from the Chairman. IGP Okiro appealed to politicians to stop making promises they were not sure of fulfilling [lest it happens again?].”

We then asked: “What is happening to society? Our youths are angry, they are armed, and they are dangerous. And on a murderous rampage…”

We then went further to suggest: “The family institution in all cultures of this country must immediately be the subject of great inquiry; that the death penalty for drugs dealing and trafficking must be reinstated; that our theoretical education system, which arms no one with any functional skills, must immediately be overhauled with all seriousness; that Social Security, as a form of ransom for the youth, is now more than ever imperative. (Yes, wasting money on a wasted generation is a waste, but the society that initially wasted this generation must now be made to ransom itself from these rampaging youths so that they have something to eat and drink, not to drink our blood).”

We further suggested: “We must all unite and curse and invite the wrath of Allah on all those who drug and destroy our youths through politics, while their (politicians’) own children are ensconced in good schools in the country and most times abroad; that youths must also be made to face the wrath of the law like everybody else. Drugs are taken voluntarily, so if they take drugs and murder and rape, they must capitally be punished for premeditated murder and rape.”

Therefore, on the Sallah Murders, may justice be done. Swiftly. May justice not be delayed by those busy-body human rights NGOs who will now enter the fray, citing ‘the accused’s state of mind.’ After all, when a rabid dog attacks humans or even animals, it is put down. No one asks for its state of mind. Let the busy bodies leave us alone. Let justice take its course to put down rabid dogs and rabid humans. Whatever their state of mind.

May Allah admit the murdered family into His paradise, and may Allah especially favour Hafsat, who is reported ‘to have struggled’ before being hacked to death.

The busy bodies did succeed back in 1893: Lizzie Borden was acquitted after a brief trial.