Who Killed Hassan Rasheed?

BY GBOGBOWA GBOWA

If the young, promising and easy going, Hassan Rasheed, 25 years old youth had any premonition that death was lurking in the corner and that he would breathe his last on Saturday, March 22, 2025, perhaps, he would have remained indoors.

Late Hassan Rasheed

Yes, under the watchful eyes of his beloved but now agonizing mother, at 15 Oseni Street, Sabo, in the Ojo local government area of Lagos State. Death sneaked him on him through the hands of those family sources described as his fellow youths and acquaintances, within the Sabo-Ajamgbadi community area.

According to family report, while the remote cause of his untimely and dastard death was his alleged refusal to join a purported Sabo-Ajamgbadi youths cult group, those supposedly mounting pressure on him to be part of their cult accused of a missing GSM phone a development that made him join his major accuser, a youth simply known as Tao and other neighbourhood youths at a hang-out joint in Sabo-Alaba, early Saturday afternoon.

Giving the background gist of what happened, a family source who spoke with our reporter explained that Hassan, a secondary school graduate and a welder, had collected his friend, Tao’s phone to play music. Tao was said to have later asked an unnamed mutual friend to collect the phone from Hassan and bring to him.

The source claimed that Hassan handed the phone over to the intermediary only for Tao to later send another person to ask Hassan to bring the phone. Following his argument that Tao had already sent someone to collect it earlier, Hassan was allegedly asked to come over to the joint where Tao and  some of the neighbourhood youths and friends, allegedly including Raimi, Muda, Taofeek, Belami, Gafari, Muiz aka Hot Water and Songoro were hanging out.

There, Tao and the others reportedly accused Hassan of stealing the phone. While he was said to have denied the charge, the youths reportedly said he did, whereupon the phone owner, Tao allegedly suggested that Hassan should follow them to a yet to be identified place to swear by drinking Orisa water. The source speaking on behalf of Hassan’s distraught mother informed that Hassan expressed willingness to go with them to wherever they wished, insisting he was innocent of their charge.

According to our source, Hassan went with them and drank the Orisa concoction; adding that the fellows however refused to relent after Hassan consumed the Orisa concoction and nothing happened to him.

Explaining the circumstances leading to Hassan’s death, the source said, “It turned out that they were just deceiving him, because shortly after, they suggested another place and succeeded in deceiving the boy to go along with them.

“They ended up in an uncompleted building where they started beating him and had him caged as they prevented him from escaping all day. We were told that they taunted him for refusing to join their cult. Somehow someone sneaked the information of his predicament to his senior brother at home. The brother due to the fear that Sabo and Ajamgbadi are not in good terms and don’t agree…was reluctant to rush there.

“After weighing the option of going there and been ambushed and ganged beaten, he alerted the Oloye community chieftains to alert Oba Jafo of Iba Land. By the time the boy was brought on the intervention of Jafo, he was already dead.” The family source said Hassan is a gentle, easy going youth and was participating in the ongoing Ramadan fasting before meeting his untimely death. The boy was buried on Sunday by 2pm.”

He explained that despite that the deceased father is a community chieftain and part of the Oloye known as Alake-Konju, his mother is worried that the Nigerian Police may be prevented from doing a thorough job and hence be prevented from bringing the killers of her son to justice.

The source farther explained that those who brought Hassan’s corpse deposited it in front of the family house and immediately made to escape but that one was apprehended.

In a strange development, the youth who reportedly was sent by Tao to collect the phone was seen Monday morning with it. Upon allegedly been challenged and told that Hassan has been murdered over the phone, he reportedly took to his heels and disappeared from the area.

Those familiar with the case said men of the Ilemba Hausa Police Station, Ajamgbadi, Ojo Lagos are investigating the matter. The deceased mother’s is crying because they don’t have any connection…that Nigerians should ensure that those who killed her son are brought to justice in view of concerns that the Nigeria Police may allow the case to drag or even sweep it under the carpet.