Hamzat Murder: He Just Completed His House – Family Head
Alhaji Soga Hamzat, 71, elder brother of the slain Toyin Hamzat, speaks in Ayepe, Ogun State.
Sir, how do you feel about the loss of your younger brother?
His
death is like putting fire on the family’s body. It’s very painful and
devastating. We only pray to God to help us in this trying period, to
give us the courage to accept the loss because Toyin Hamzat has been a
very amiable junior brother.
He’s
very intelligent, social and he was a qualified pharmacist from the
University of Lagos. After his B.pharm he had two Masters degrees, that
is MBA and M.sc in Political Science.
What
pains us most is that he had just put up this building (Burj Khalifa)
in his hometown not quite two
months ago and he had spent only a very
short time living there. For us to lose him at this particular time, is
an irreparable loss.
What would the family miss most about your late brother?
We
are already missing so much, everything good for humanity about him. He
was the Otun Baba Adinni of Aiyepe. He’s also Otunba Fibigboye of
Aiyepe. So, what ever we did in Aiyepe, he was always there morally and
financially. He was just given the chieftaincy title on October 1 and
that was when he moved into this house.
As the head of the family, how was the relationship between you and him?
He
was my confidant. I have only recovered slightly because today’s is the
fourth day since he died. I have been crying since Sunday night because
I was the first to be called and when I got there, and I saw his body
and his car at OSUTH about 10:30pm on Sunday. You can imagine how I felt
as his most senior brother. I am 71-year-old and he was 54.
We were born by the same father. So, you can see it’s a great loss to me.
How have his wife and children been coping since his death on Sunday?
His
wife is a magistrate in Lagos State, Mrs. Funke Hamzat. It was a very
big task for me to pilot her to Aiyepe when the incident occurred
without telling her what had happened. It was when she got here that we
broke the sad news to her. She has gone back to Lagos because people
would be coming there to greet her. Even this morning Bola Tinubu was in
their Lagos house. And that was why she was not here today to welcome
the Ogun State Governor.
In our family, she’s like a daughter because she calls me Daddy.
So, how have the children been coping?
His
children are still young. Only two or three of them are probably above
20. One is in London, the first daughter is here followed by two boys.
One is serving now in Ikeja Local Government, just graduated from the
university.
And so that is the
complexity of the problem we have inherited from somebody who was so
close to every member of the family. He was a family man to the core. A
very peaceful man; he never liked quarrel, he would rather walk away. He
never liked arguments. People have been trooping in here since Sunday
but what can we do? He has gone; it’s an irreparable loss.
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