Encomium
ALHAJI Ademola Adeagbo, the Deputy Managing director of Intercontinental Finance and Investment Company and the auditor of the bank, who was said to have implicated Dr. Erastus Akingbola, the embattled former MD/CEO of the bank has been assassinated.
The 45 year old chartered accountant, was assassinated on Friday, August 6, 2010, around 7.00pm by three men, who claimed to be policemen.
The father of three had closed from work that Friday, August 6, 2010 and his first place of call on reaching his Mowe village residential area, was his wife’s shop, which is just a stone throw to his home ostensibly to collect the keys of his private residence.
While leaving his wife’s shop, two of his three daughters chose to follow him in his Toyota Corola 2009 model. As he was driving along the narrow untarred road that leads to his home, a widow, whose son, Alhaji Adeagbo had been assisting for admission to higher institution stopped him for a discussion on the issue.
While discussing with the woman, a red car pulled behind is car thinking that he had probably blocked them from passing, Alhaji Adeagbo attempted to park his car very well in order to create enough space for them to pass. But the three men, who came down from the red car told him not to bother moving his car at all.
They told him it was him they are looking for and that they are policemen, who have come to arrest him. Alhaji Adeagbo was said to have told them he had not committed any offence to warrant his being invited by the police.
The assassins did not buy Alhaji’s argument and rather than producing the warrant of arrest demanded by Adeagbo, they tried to drag him into their car. When he refused to be dragged into their car, he was shot at close range by the three men. Immediately after their dastardly act, they moved into Alhaji Adeagbo’s car and drove away. The car was later abandoned at Ibafo, a neighbouring village to Mowe.
Alhaji Adeagbo, who had slumped and blood was gushing out of his body was quickly picked up and put into his wife’s Honda CRV car for Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, Lagos where he was pronounced dead before his was corpse deposited at the emergency ward.
Alhaji Adeagbo’s assassination has, however, stirred-up another controversy on the financial impropriety allegations against Dr. Erastus Akingbola.
Many of Alhaji Adeagbo’s family members and friends are of the opinion that his assassination may not be unconnected to the case. This is because Alhaji Adeagbo, by virtue of his former position as the auditor of Intercontinental Bank was several times the guest of EFCC while the investigation into the alleged financial impropriety in the bank was going on.
He was said to have corporated with the officials of the anti-corruption body to the extent that he was being considered as their star witness against top management staffers of the bank, who were implicated in the fraud.
According to a family source, who does not want his name published prior to his assassination, Alhaji Adeagbo had received several death threats from unknown persons. When we called Mr. Femi Babafemi, the EFCC spokesman on the issue, he promised to get in touch with the officials of the organization that are handling the case to ascertain whether the late Alhaji Ademola Adeagbo, before his untimely death, was indeed the organization’s star witness.
- THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN ENCOMIUM WEEKLY ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2010
