Family of the slain former chief of defence staff, Air Vice Marshal,
Alex Badeh, has denied report on the cause of the death of their son –
Badeh was killed on his farm in Nassarawa on December 18. One of the
suspected killers of Badeh had on Thursday, December 27, confessed that
the former chief of defence staff was killed to rob him of huge sums of
money The family of late former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Vice
Marshal, Alex Badeh, has refuted claims by the suspects linked to their
son’s death that they killed him to seize alleged huge sums of money he
had on him to buy farmland.
Vanguard reports that the family on
Thursday, December 27, insisted that contrary to the claim, Badeh did
not discuss any issue about the acquisition of land neither was he with
up to N500 on the day he was killed.
A source gathered that this
came as police authorities failed on Thursday, December 27, to parade
five suspects, including two masterminds of the December 18 killing of
Badeh.
The five suspects who the media expected would be paraded
at Force Headquarters, Abuja, were not paraded as the police said doing
so would jeopardize ongoing investigation and efforts to arrest other
members of the gang still at large. The newspaper reports that the
family said the claim was a “cook-up story to deceive the public and
hide the killers and their intentions.” It was gathered that the family
called the newspaper to the late Chief of Air Staff’s Abuja residence,
to react to the claim by the suspected killers that he was killed
because of the huge amount of money he had carried to his farm in Panda
Development Area of Nasarawa state to buy additional land. But while
delegating only one member to speak, the family was said to have
insisted that the name of the representative be kept in secrecy.
Speaking, the family member said:
”We called you here because
we have been following your report in Vanguard since our son and
brother, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, was killed by yet-to-be
identified people.
“We are not happy with the report being put
out to the public there on the circumstances that led to his death. We
as a family, believe that some people responsible for his death want to
deceive the public by hiding the facts of what happened, how it happened
and those responsible.
“I want to emphatically tell you here
that contrary to the claim that he went to his farm on the fateful day
with huge amount of money to buy additional farmland, there was nothing
like that. In fact, he had no money on him that day, not even N500 in
the vehicle.
“As I told you, no money, I repeat, no money was in
that vehicle. Not even N500 was in that vehicle on that day he was
killed. I repeat that no N500 not even N1000 was in that motor he drove
that he was killed that day. “Before his death, a villager who knew he
was on the farm that day went to meet him to get money to buy
paracetamol tablet for his headache but my brother could not afford the
money for him. ”Instead, he asked the person if he could go to Panda
Market. When the man said he could, our brother told him to pick 10
mudus (measured quantity) of maize to sell in the market and buy drug
for himself, saying that was the only help he could render to him since
he had no cash to give out.
“He took time to narrate to the
person that as he was talking to him, there was a huge refuse dump at
his house in Abuja and the people responsible for packing it, that is
the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, had refused to do so because
he had no money to pay for the packing.
“He added that his cook
and the cleaner in his house had not been paid, explaining further that
those were the reasons he went to farm on that day to pick some bags of
harvested maize, like 100 bags, to sell so as to raise money to settle
those issues.
“Again, he told his workers on the farm that since
they have blocked his pension, his only source of getting money, only
three out of the eight working for him can remain as he wouldn’t have
money to pay all the eight anymore.”
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