Update: Grieving mother of 37-year-old man killed in Ibadan mayhem demands justice

Alhaja Salimot Azeez, the mother of 37-year-old Ramon Azeez, killed in a clash between shop owners and members of Park Management System (PMS) in Ibadan, has called on the Oyo State government to help them get justice. 

LIB reported that Rahmon was stabbed to death during the mayhem which occurred in Iwo Road area of Ibadan on Wednesday evening, June 16.

The Lead City University graduate was said to be preparing to travel to the United States of America to see his wife who recently delivered a set of twins. 

Trouble started when Rahmon, whose mother owns Iwo Road Shopping Complex in the area wanted to park his vehicle in front of the complex but discovered that Park Managers had parked their vehicles at available spaces.

He was said to have asked the drivers to leave the entrance to allow customers and visitors to the complex to access the building. The drivers were said to have reported him to the park managers who were accused of swooping on the father of twins and started beating him.

His mother’s tenants and phone sellers were said to have rescued him from the hands of the drivers and park managers. Not satisfied, the assailants reportedly left to mobilise and invaded the complex with weapons. The hoodlums targeted Azeez and hurled stones, sticks and other sharp objects at him before he was stabbed in the chest.

Speaking to journalists at her residence on Friday, June 18, Alhaja Azeez revealed that the family has video evidence where some leaders of PMS in the state asked his members to attack traders at the shopping complex.

The grieving mother said all her children are devout Muslims contrary to claims in some quarters that late Ramon was a cultist.

“The transport union people had been using the frontage of the shopping complex for years. As a matter of fact, they used to defecate and smoke in my shopping complex when I first bought it. They used the place for transportation activities for not less than seven years,” she narrated. 

“It was former Commissioner of Police in Oyo State, Adisa Bolanta, who intervened and resolved the matter and that we should allow them to use a part of the entrance and I allowed them. Even the Divisional Police Officer at that time took photographs of the way the commercial drivers were disturbing us and took them to the Commissioner of Police and he resolved it for us.

“Despite the fact that I gave them space to operate, they were not satisfied. My son who was killed graduated from Lead City University. My firstborn who they attempted to kill graduated from a university in London. He said he could not do the kind of job people are doing in London and that was why he came back home to engage in personal business.

“My son, Ramon, who was killed has a shop within the complex where he was selling phones. He was never a cultist. He was a phone dealer. I don’t know what I did for the park managers that made them kill my son. This is a great loss. 

“A 37-year-old was killed just like that. Government should help me to get those who killed my son. I want justice. I want to know why they killed my son when he didn’t fight or drag anything with them.”

Meanwhile, the elder brother of the deceased who is also the manager of the said shopping complex, Hammed Azeez, while speaking on the incident, said he was the main target of the members of PMS who attacked his brother.

“I was actually the target. Had it been they were able to lay their hands on me that day, I wouldn’t have been here today. I still don’t know why the man is still walking freely.” he said.