A shroud of grief seemed to have enveloped the household of Mrs. Isiwat Badmus in Ikotun area of Lagos. It was exactly one week since her son, Saheed, 29-year-old graduate of a polytechnic in Ekiti State, met his death during a European Champion’s League match on April 30, 2014.
Kunle Falayi Report that,As Atletico Madrid fans shouted in victory when the match ended against Chelsea FC that day, the Badmus family and the deceased’s friends shouted in agony as he gave up the ghost.
Saheed was stabbed in the neck by a barber identified as Yemi, during an argument about sitting position in a viewing centre where he was watching the Chelsea-Atletico match.
On Wednesday, Saturday PUNCH visited the family and the mother’s grief as she sat on the floor of her tiny room, was immediately apparent.
It was clear the family was struggling to make ends meet but the woman was in agony because had her son not had the argument, he would have been in the United Kingdom some days after the incident.
“I was praying to God that as he was travelling abroad, he would find fortune and be a big help to his family. All his papers were complete, he had got his visa and his ticket,” she said.
Isiwatu said his son was never a troublemaker. She said Saheed was almost depressed because he found no job almost three years after he graduated. But the young man felt so lucky when he got a visa to join a relation that was abroad.
“We could hardly eat in a day, yet I managed to finance his education. He would tell me that as I had suffered to see him through school, he too would suffer to ensure I enjoy the rest of my life.
“This is why that man that took him from me should also be killed. He took the life of my child; his life should be taken too.”
Seventy-year-old Isiwatu was inconsolable, repeating that she did not see the death of his beloved last child coming.
He loved football but he would not even go to the carnival parties that young men his age in the neighbourhood go to, the mother said.
Saheed’s older brother, Hakeem Liadi, also told our correspondent that his brother (from another father) was indeed a gentle soul.
Liadi said, “He was worried sick that he could not find a job and engaged himself productively. At a point when he was complaining too much, I advised him to go and learn aluminium fabrication. But it seemed that was not his passion.
“I was in my shop that evening when someone rushed in to tell me that Saheed was in a fight. I rushed to the scene only to see his friends already getting a vehicle to take him to the hospital. Blood was gushing from a wound in his neck.”
They took Saheed to two private hospitals, which rejected him, it was learnt.
But by the time he was taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, it was already too late. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
Liadi said Saheed’s trip abroad had received the prayer and support of everybody in the family as they hoped that if he succeeded abroad, the family would be better for it.
He said, “We were praying for him that his planned sojourn abroad would be fruitful; that he would come back to help our struggling family as much as he could. But the killer has denied our family that joy.
“Our mother is inconsolable and it is certain she would never get over Saheed’s death. Instead of leaving the country, he left the world. That is why we are so sad. Just a few days more and he would have escaped this death.”
A photograph of Saheed’s body after his death showed a deep gash in the neck.