Dipo Dina: Whodunnit?

Death is a killjoy. It strikes, in most cases, when it is least expected. It is cheeky and wicked.

There was jubilation in the newsroom on Monday night when the Super Eagles subdued the gallant Zambians to book a place in the semi-finals of the African Cup of Nations in Angola. The eagles were on the verge of breaking the hearts of many fans as they played like expectant women. But fate, that unseen hand in human affairs, had obviously decreed that Nigeria would carry the day. We beat the Zambians in the penalty kicks that followed the regulation time and the extra time, which showed clearly that the eagles had failed the test of endurance that the game had become. They were tired.

Unknown to us, the match was not the only event that would make this paper go to bed late. Some one hour away in Sango-Ota, the Ogun State industrial and university town on the outskirts of Lagos, unknown gunmen had killed otunba Dipo Dina, the colourful candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in the 2007 governorship election in that state.

Many believe it was a case of assassination, the police suspected both robbery and assassination. They have sworn to get to the root of the matter. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, as if to tell those who doubt that he is in charge, has given the police one week to send him a report on the case. Besides, he said such killings would no longer be tolerated. Good talk. But, lte’s wait a minute and ponder the question of death and its agents.

Why do people kill? Why do people hire killers to send their real and imaginary enemies to the grave? Cash? Power? Pure madness? Envy? If it is for cash, you ask: just how much money does a man need to spend to get material satisfaction? If it is for power: can a man be as powerful as God? Won’t there be more powerful men in the world? Of what use is power that is an end in itself and not a means to an end that will bring joy to the majority of the people at all times. Can power draw that inner peace that keeps the mind at its tranquil best? If it is madness; how often do certified mad people kill? How come many murder suspects look cool and calm, betraying no emotions, even after owning up to such odious crime? Some psychic phenomenon? Dead conscience?

Also knotty is the question of who a killer is. How do we recognize an assassin? Does he have a family? What does he do with the cash he is paid for his fiendish labour by his equally demonic or more demonic hirer(s)? Does he bend to the pull of the flesh and take more wives? Would he consider buying off the palace shelf at a chieftancy title to enhance his status? When he sleeps, does he have it smooth and effortless like a baby? Doesn’t the gory nature of his strange trade hunt him?

People used to say that hunger and the uncertainty in the land may have driven many to join the devilish vocation. It was said that at a time when many people were being killed in the ‘90s, those trained in such perversion would, right on the street and in broad daylight, signal to passers-by that their services were available by raising a hand up to their neck level, slashing the air in the manner in which a knife cuts a chicken’s head off its neck. This, said many an observer, is to show that they are good at contract killing. Nobody ever came out to say he hired them. But, if there were no buyers, would there be sellers?

When the assassins strikes, the victim’s friends and relations, in obvious self-consolation, deride him (the killer) as a coward who could not face the victim in a free and fair contest. Are men who kill truly cowards? If they are not, why the surprise element, with the victim caught unawares? Why don’t they own up after the deed if they are valiant and not villainous? What colour does the face of an assassin wear? Does it exhibit a child-like innocence, like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s? Or is it of some feral looks like a lion’s?

And what is the role of faith in all this? What faith does the assassin subscribe to? Does he believe in life after life? What spiritual engine drives his attitude to life and living? Does he subscribe to the fatalistic view that whatever will be will be and there’s nothing anyone can do about it? Does he pray? If he does, what does he ask God to do for him? Give him a good pay day? Or is he just a pure atheist? If he is, is atheism anti-humanism? Is it a licence for anthropometry? There are decent atheists in town who do not disturb others from following their religious beliefs.

The corollary of the faith angle is the question of retribution. Whatever a man sows he shall reap, it is said. Don’t natural sense subscribe to this? Consider the case of Barnabas Jabila, who is also known as Sergeant Rogers- remember him? He was the leader of the dreaded strike force of the monstrous Abacha regime. He was reported last week to have been confined to a wheel chair after a road crash. What do we call this?

Whenever a prominent citizen is killed, the police vow to find the killers. At times, they pepper their action with some drama, announcing a reward for those who could give them “useful information” and setting a time frame within which to seize the killers. When the pressure becomes too much, they grab some unlucky suspects, parade them before reporters and- in some cases- nothing is ever heard of the case. In others, the suspects are taken to the court to face charges which are more often than not quite difficult to sustain. Check out the case of the guys accused of killing the foremost philanthropist and public good campaigner, Pa Alfred Rewane. Of the five suspects arrested over his murder, only one is left; the others are dead, even as the trial is yet to begin.

There is a parallel between the Rewane suspects’ case and Alfred Aminasoari Dikibbo’s. Dikibbo, you may recall, was the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain who was killed by unknown gunmen in Delta State on February 7, 2004. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said on television that robbers killed him. Before then on March 5, 2003, another PDP chief, Marshall Harry, was murdered. I doubt if his killers have been found.

The late Chief Bola Ige was Attorney-General and justice minister. How was killed in his Ibadan home on December 23, 2001. The police arrested some suspects, locked them up and went about how to dismantle what many felt was a water-tight case. Some of those suspects have since been well rewarded with public offices. Funsho Williams, an engineer and Lagos PDP governorship as pirant, was murdered on July 27, 2006. His killers are yet to be arrested.

There were numerous others, many of them some of our brightest: Dr. Ayo Daramola, the World Bank consultant who planned to govern Ekiti state, Tunde Omojola, who was home from Europe on holiday in Ekiti, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, Odunayo Olagbaju, Anambra lawyer Barnabas Igwe and his wife Amaka. Alhaji Lateef Olaniyan. Toyin Onagoruwa. The guardian man Agbroko and Abayomi Ogundeji. The list is inexhaustible.

But why will they kill Dina,a man whose goodness may have been testifying to. He was handsome and brilliant, a successful accountant who wanted to rule Ogun State. He pursued his ambition with remarkable dexterity and agility of a champion athlete. He exposed fraud and got punished for it, but he was unrelenting.

Dina had every reason to want to mount the saddle in Ogun. Here was a state fondly called the Gateway state that became a subject of beer parlour jokes, with its leading lights dancing naked in the street. Ogun, home of intellectuals, foremost lawyers and educationists,became the hotbed of political violence and shameful exertions, such as ritualism, in high places. A lawmaker was exposed as he swore to an oath while naked. He agreed he did but added that it was on the prompting of the governor, right in the governor’s home. His excellency denied it all. Just how sordid can matters get before decent men will come to say: enough?

May Dina’s soul not rest until his killers are brought to justice. And may the state of his dream emerge someday. Soon.