Nigeria's Historical Throwback Lane -2

Take a walk down Nigeria's memory lane and see where the path might lead you....

*flash* Oh NO!..Hadiza!!!

Hadiza Lantana Oboh (1959 -  1998)

Hadiza Oboh was the first and only female commercial pilot of the defunctNigerian Airways, qualifying as a flight officer for the massive Boeing 737 as at 1984. 

She was an aviation amazon who blazed the trail in the sector and was hailed far and wide as a shining star and future of the emerging Nigerian women in highly skilled, highly professional sectors.

That expectation was cut off on the 8^th of February 1998 in a very gruesome way by her domestic staff. 

She had returned from a trip and headed home to her highbrow 40A Bourdillion Road duplex in her white Santana, changed her uniform and headed straight into the kitchen after a brief rest. 

Unknown to her, Abdulahi the gateman who had just opened the gate when she came back had quietly let in three other men with the sole purpose and intent to kill her. Among these men was Peter Eche a man she had previously hired as a gardener. He it was,who mobilized the other killers after Abdulahi had hinted the plan to him.

While she was cooking, Abdulahi and his cohorts made their way from the kitchen entrance and in a flash, attacked Hadiza, and strangled her to death with a rope after much struggles.

They went ahead in most inhumane fashion to incinerate her body in the septic tank and carefully cemented it back. Her room was looted, designer clothes and bags taken away, money and valuable possessions disposed (this was the sole purpose of the killing).

The septic tank where her body was hidden  

After a while people began to inquire of her whereabouts, she had not shown up at work nor been seen in social circles for a disturbing long time, each time Peter Eche who was now occupying the house would reply..”Madam no dey, she no talk when she go come back” 

Three months after her death, the police arrested Abdulahi, Peter and their Cohorts for unlawful possession, after people found out her Santana was now being used as a taxi by the group and people were affirming that they had bought property from them.

All this while no one knew where the pilot was, the case took a new turn when the police visited her house and Detective Samuel Okaula observed the uneven cementing of the septic tank and a half bag of cement near the tank, they also found the rope used in strangling her near the kitchen and stains of blood on the floor. 

After an intensive manhunt Abdulahi was nabbed, the police questioned Peter who was already in their custody and he later made a full confessional statement detailing the role each member played in the murder.Her decomposing body would later be recovered from the septic tank.

By the 1^st of June 1998, the police had charged all four men to court and while still waiting for advice from the public prosecutor, a high court granted two of the accused bail, with two sureties. The men granted bail vanished, and when the ministry of Justice ordered for their re-arrest it was discovered that the two sureties gave fake names and addresses.

 The police is still looking for the escaped killers.