FEARS have continued to grip the family of Augustine Okereke, whose three-year-old son was allegedly murdered by an Islamic cleric in Lagos State, as some people have been threatening them to discontinue the case.
Augustine, while speaking with Nigerian Tribune on Monday, confirmed the threat and added that those who came to threaten him and his family warned him to release the Islamic cleric.
This is just as the killing of the three-year-old Chiagoze has created a clash between the Yoruba and Igbo in Isheri-Osun area of the state.
The father of the deceased boy told Nigerian Tribune that he had just returned from the mortuary where he went to deposit his son’s remains when some unidentified people stormed his house.
Augustine said “it was in the night on the second day after the boy was killed. We came back from the mortuary and some people came and threatened me to leave their man.”
The father of the deceased boy said “On Wednesday, when we came back from the mortuary, we came back very late. They came to threaten me.
“They said that if I didn’t release their brother, they would wipe out me and my family.”
Augustine could only identify those who threatened to kill him and his family as ‘some Yoruba boys.’
Meanwhile, the killing has created crisis in Isheri-Osun and Ijegun areas following reported claims by some Yoruba that it was not Alfa Kazeem Alinson who committed the crime.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that some Yoruba were arguing that it was the 15-year-old boy who claimed to have been given N500 who killed the boy.
A resident of the area, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “The case is now even taking on a new turn and it is dividing the Yoruba and Igbo in the areas.”
The resident added that: “The Yoruba are insisting that it was the 15-year-old boy who killed the boy and that he was only trying to incriminate the Islamic cleric.”
The father of the deceased boy, however, denied such claims, saying that the murder was a planned work between the two of them (the Alfa and the teenager).
“If you see the stone and the place, where the boy was killed, you would know that it was not that young boy who killed my son,” he said.
Efforts to get the reaction of the image-maker in charge of the state police command, Olarinde Famous-Cole, to react to the threat on the lives of the deceased boy’ s family failed as calls to his mobile phone were not answered as of the time of filing this report.
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