‘My husband’s killers danced round his corpse before leaving’

Posted by admin Education, Headlines Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Ruth, wife of the slain Chief Security Officer of the Federal College of Land Resources Technology, Jos, Plateau State, Mr. Haruna Danjuma, has given a gory account of how her husband was killed, on Thursday, by some alleged herdsmen in his quarters located inside the school premises.

Apart from being the chief security officer of the institution, which is under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Haruna, 58, who hailed from Manguna in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau, was also a staunch labour leader and member of the Non-Academic Staff Union of the institution.

Haruna’s death was the climax of a long struggle between him and some Fulani herdsmen over the ownership of some cattle. Some days before he was killed, Danjuma had reported the theft of his cows. He had accused the herdsmen of being the brains behind serial theft of cattle in Fan, Vom, Kuru, Barakin Ladi and Farin Lamba areas.

Fortunately for him, some of the cows were recovered and an identification parade was carried out by the police. His own cattle were handed over to him. The police made a very big show of the event. It was widely televised by the local television station. That might have been Danjuma’s nemesis as he was mauled down a few days later.

Ruth, 42, told PUNCH METRO on Saturday that but for the divine mercy, she would have been killed along with her husband. She said that at the time of her husband’s brutal killing, he was at home with her son and two daughters. While the two daughters were lucky to escape unhurt, her son received machete cuts and is currently receiving treatment in a hospital.

“I travelled to the village and he was with my children when the killers arrived at about 7.30 pm on that Thursday. He was in his room when they heard a noise outside. The attackers were shouting that they had got to his house. He quickly got out of the house and ran into an adjoining room, not knowing that they had surrounded the house. They followed him inside and shot him on the chest,” she said.

Ruth said that thereafter, the killers, who came in army camouflage uniform dragged his lifeless body outside and danced round it before carting away all the cattle that were returned to him by the police.

“They were singing and dancing round his body, saying that ‘this is the foolish Haruna, we have finally got him’,” she said.

All the while, Ruth said that her two daughters hid under the bed and did not utter a word until the killers left. That, she said, saved them from the killers.

The marauders were said to have felled Haruna in a pool of his blood before making their exit through the adjoining hills to Farin Lamba. She said that if the police could carry out a thorough investigation, the family would be able to identify the stolen cows and possibly, the killers.

The state command’s Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abdulrahman Akano, said that the police were already investigating the incident, adding that the matter would not be swept under the carpet.

-Punchwp_posts