Ajagbe, an okada rider in Abaa, a community along the Ogbomoso-Ilorin expressway in the Surulere local government area of Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria, was counting down to his 40th birthday when he was killed by the kidnappers he volunteered to deliver a ransom to at their hideout.

“I wouldn’t have allowed him to take on the assignment if he had told me about it,” his wife, Temitope Ajagbe, told Neusroom during a visit to Abaa, in Ogbomoso, on Saturday, August 27, 2022.

Ogbomoso hotelier, LAUTECH student– Rachael, and okada rider who conveyed the ransom bearer to the meeting point with the kidnappers were all killed. That’s what multiple reports say.

The okada rider’s personality was vague. He almost didn’t matter. His family, comprising his wife and four children – ages 18, 13, 9 and 6, may have resigned to fate, but they remain heartbroken as they nurse their pain with fury.

“His death has changed everything in the family,” Amos, his first child, told Neusroom.

The outraged social media users have also moved on to the next topic. Nigeria happened to Idowu Ajagbe, just like Dr Chinelo Megafu, killed by terrorists in the Abuja-Kaduna train attack in March 2022 and Dr Fatai Aborode, murdered on his way from his farm in Igangan, Oyo State, in December 2020. No one knows the next victim.

How Idowu Ajagbe Became A Victim:

Idowu Ajagbe was rounding up the day’s work as business activities were gradually winding down when, according to his wife, the monarch of the community, Alabaa of Abaa, Oba Bolarinwa Ayanpoju, summoned him to convey a volunteer to deliver ₦5m ransom to the bandits who had kidnapped Olugbenga Owolabi, the 55-year-old Nigerian-American, who returned to the country to supervise his hospitality business in Ogbomoso. Owolabi was abducted alongside one of his staff, Rachael Opadele, a final year student of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), on Thursday, July 28, 2022.

After days of negotiation between Owolabi’s family and the bandits who demanded ₦50m as a ransom, Owolabi’s elder brother offered to take ₦5m to the bandits, but on the advice of the monarch, who told him it was not a good decision to take the ransom to the bandits himself as a brother of the victim, he decided against it. When Ayorinde could not find a volunteer, the monarch offered to assist. Idowu Ajagbe and Kunle (not real name) became the go-to persons. (Neusroom is not using his real name because community members fear retribution from the bandits)

“He just wanted to help,” Samson, Ajagbe’s friend of over 20 years, told Neusroom. “I’m very sure he didn’t ask for money for the assignment. That’s the kind of person he was.”

On Tuesday, August 2, 2022, the day Ajagbe was killed, his wife said, “I called him to ask what he would like for dinner, and he told me he wouldn’t be coming home anytime soon. I was surprised to see him at my shop around 6 pm; he had bought meat and brought it to the shop. Then he said Alabaa sent him on an errand. He didn’t tell me what the errand was about. Since it wasn’t the first time he was running such an errand, I couldn’t stop him. But I was worried because it was getting late, and I told him to return home early. He even told me he was hungry, and I bought him corn.”

Idowu Ajagbe assured his wife he would be home soon, and he left for the assignment.

Unbeknownst to Temitope, Ajagbe had been asked to convey the bearer of the ransom to the forest to secure the release of Olugbenga Owolabi and Rachael.

Following the instruction of the bandits not to come with a car but a motorcycle, Ajagbe became the go-to person for the task, and many say he was likely chosen for the task due to his honesty.

Almost every week since 2015, there are reports of kidnappings in the Nigerian media, with bandits demanding millions of naira in ransom. Although security agencies always warn victims’ families not to pay a ransom, the people have no confidence in the efficiency of the security agencies to secure the release of their loved ones. In most cases, victims’ families ignore the advice of the security operatives and pay huge sums as ransom. That has been the trend in different parts of Nigeria.

Reports say Nigerians paid over ₦13bn as ransom to bandits between June 2011 and July 11, 2022. In April 2022, the Nigerian Senate passed a bill imposing a 15-year jail term for payment of a ransom to kidnappers and the death penalty where abduction leads to the victim’s death, but it has not deterred bandits. Since the bill was passed in April 2022, more than 1,800 people have been kidnapped across the country as of August 31, 2022.

The Prelate of the Methodist Church in Nigeria, Samuel Kanu-Uche, who is one of the high-profile kidnapping cases, said he paid ₦100m to regain his freedom when he was kidnapped alongside his chaplain and a bishop in May 2022.

In the case of Owolabi, the bandits insisted on ₦50m, but after days of negotiation, the family told them only ₦5m had been raised, and the bandits asked them to send the ransom.

“After collecting the ransom, they moved them to where my brother was and asked him if he knew them. He said no,” Ayorinde said.

After counting the money, the bandits opened fire on Owolabi, Rachael, Ajagbe and the ransom bearer who was able to escape but others died. (Neusroom is not using the real name of the survivor because community members fear retribution from the bandits).

“I started calling Idowu around 8 pm, his phone rang multiple times, but he didn’t pick up the call. So I thought he was still riding the motorcycle,” his wife said.

At 9 pm, Temitope, who was still expecting her husband, said she called his best friend Samson to ask if he knew about her husband’s whereabouts.

“I was surprised when she called to tell me Idowu was not home and his number was unreachable. On my way home, I checked at the usual spot where we meet every evening; since I didn’t see him there, I assumed he had gone home, and I also headed for my house,” Samson told Neusroom. 

After Temitope’s call, Samson went to the palace to check what was wrong, but “the wife of Alabaa (the monarch) requested to speak with me on the phone and assured me that all was well and my husband would be back soon,” Temitope said.

“At 1 am, when I didn’t see him, I called the Reverend to help call Alabaa since Kabiesi wasn’t picking Samson’s call again. The Rev called back and assured me that he had called Alabaa who confirmed he sent my husband on an errand and all was well.”

While Temitope was looking forward to Idowu Ajagbe’s return, Rachael’s mother said the bandits “called me with Racheal’s phone around 11 pm, saying ‘the money we asked for, and you couldn’t provide, go and use it to throw a party. You will see your daughter tomorrow’. Which means they had been killed at that time.”

Temitope was apprehensive all through the night. Her husband’s absence murdered sleep. At 5 am, after the morning devotional at their local church – First Baptist Church, Abaa, where Rachael’s family and the monarch are also members, Temitope went to the palace. The melancholic gathering at the palace, where she saw an unusual number of people pensive, raised suspicions, but she shrugged it off.

She was told the monarch was not at the palace but at the church, confused and worried that she didn’t see him in church, she headed back to the church.

It was at the church she was told the awful truth. Her husband had been killed.

“I left the palace weeping as no one told me about his whereabouts, and went to the church to see the Reverend. When I got to him, and he started speaking in parables, I asked, ‘is Idowu dead?’ He confirmed it,” she said. “I was confused. Is that how people die? What kind of assignment did they send him? It was at that moment I was informed he was asked to convey a ransom bearer to bandits.”

The day Ajagbe’s remains were brought home was the same day woods and roofing sheets for his ongoing building project were delivered to his site. 

“They brought his corpse home on the day we planned to roof the house,” his visibly angry and heartbroken wife said.

She wondered why Ajagbe was chosen for the assignment.

Samson, who has been friends with Ajagbe for over two decades, is devastated that the deceased didn’t inform him before taking up the task.

“We’ve been friends for a very long time. We wine and dine together. We never kept anything away from each other. So I was surprised that he took up such an assignment without informing any of us. We saw on that afternoon – August 2, 2022, and he didn’t tell me anything.”

A Profile In Honesty And Integrity

Born August 21, 1982, in Ogbomoso where he lived all his life, Ajagbe’s highest educational qualification – a secondary school leaving certificate, was obtained at Igbon Community High School, in Gambari about 15km away from Abaa, also in Surulere local government area of Oyo state. 

He started as a medicine seller; when the business was no longer promising, he delved into commercial motorcycle riding. And the family lived happily with the little they had.

“Although it was just the both of us running the finance of the family, God blessed him in his way as we had no other source of support. He had lost his parents,” his wife said.

Described by many as truthful and honest, his wife said he was not covetous nor moved by money, and she is confident Ajagbe didn’t take up the assignment because of money.

Rev. Gbenga Adedokun of the First Baptist Church, Abaa, told newsmen at Ajagbe’s funeral that he “was our church treasurer, and before any member can attain that position, they must have shown commitment, integrity and availability to the service of God.”

Ajagbe may not have had the privilege of being a university graduate, but he was determined to ensure all his four children get a university education.

“His first child (Amos) had written WAEC and UTME and is waiting for the next step towards securing an admission into the university,” Samson said.

Amos, who told Neusroom he plans to study Political Science, is presently learning fashion designing as he awaits University admission.

“I followed him to the farm every morning. He advises and shares his story with me, telling me to learn from his story, but all is no more,” Amos told Neusroom.

Ajagbe would have been 40 on August 21, and he had made plans with Samson on how to celebrate his birthday.

“His birthday is August 21, and I am August 20. We had planned to celebrate it together on Sunday, August 21, in church, but that never happened,” Samson told Neusroom.

Ajagbe’s family remains distraught as they hang on a cliff, hoping that help will come to achieve the deceased’s dream of ensuring his children are well educated up to the university level.

With no help in sight and no family member to run to for help, it will take a miracle for Idowu Ajagbe’s dream of educating his children to be fulfilled. Temitope’s present business cannot fund the dream. 

“I’m really concerned about his family. He was the breadwinner and had a mother figure who depended on him for support,” Samson said.

Even his wife broke the Yoruba tradition which requires widows to stay in seclusion for at least a month to mourn their late husbands, and has since returned to work.

“How are we going to survive?” she asked. 

Flanked by her two daughters as she spoke to Neusroom in the small shop she uses as a salon, Temitope had just one request – “help for my children’s education.”

Nigeria’s disturbing kidnapping epidemic is tearing many families apart and shattering dreams; it is also spreading despair and long-time grief. Little wonder the country is ranked 118th out of 146 countries in the 2022 World Happiness Report. The nation’s rising insecurity has also been identified as one of the primary reasons young Nigerians are leaving the country in droves, making them the largest population of migrants from Africa to developed countries. But for those in the class of Temitope Ajagbe and her four children who can’t conveniently fund a trip out of their locality to a neighbouring city, they have resigned to fate as they hope that help will come someday to fulfil their dreams of escape out of the hustle life through higher education.

 

 

 

Story: Michael Orodare

Infographics and Cover Design: Tonte Briggs

Stringer: Samuel Adebayo

Photos: Olamide Fawole