Had he been aware that his sojourn on earth will end that fateful day, perhaps he would have left the university campus earlier.
Had he been pre-notified that he would not be among those that will
sit for the First Semester examinations, commencing on March 11, 2013,
he would have waited until half-time or even the end of the match to
entertain the students who gathered at the university’s sports complex
to watch the Deans’ Cup Finals between his department, Banking &
Finance and the Department of Insurance.
All these and many more are rhetorical questions, which no one but
God Almighty could answer. On what students and staff of the Department
of Banking & Finance of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo,
termed a brutal death, upcoming artiste, and final-year Banking &
Finance student of LASU, Olaniyan Damilola popularly known as Damino
Damoche was, on Thursday, February 28, 2013, shot dead some meters away
from the university gate along Iba Road by two unknown gunmen who rode
on a motorcycle.
As Damoche was buried last Saturday, students, staff and friends revealed to Quadlife the Damoche they knew.
One of his friends who pleaded anonymity condemned the killing
saying; “Damoche was a very reserved person and I’m so shocked that
anyone would think of killing such a young man with a bright and
promising future.”
Asked on his take that Damoche belonged to the Eiye fraternity and
must have been murdered by a rival fraternity, he retorted; “When
something bad happens to someone, you hear a lot of negative things
about such person.
I don’t think he belonged to any fraternity because we all know he detested radicalism as is common with most cultists.
“Rather than looking at his death from the cultism perspective, is it
not likely that he must have been killed by arch music rivals,
considering the fact that the music industry is highly competitive?”
Another student, Yahyah, averred that the gruesome murder of Damoche,
of whom he is an ardent fan, must not be swept under the carpet.
“The Police said they have arrested over 70 suspects, but how sure
are we that they are not innocent passers-by around the scene of the
murder? Serious investigations must be carried out to know what led to
his death because I can’t just imagine that somebody I saw at the sports
complex waiting to perform would be brutally killed.
“It was said that Damoche got a call before he left the sports
complex that fateful day. Who called him and who picked up his phone
after he was killed? Did his killers go away with his phone because the
Police can track who called him minutes before his death.”
On his part, Comrade Seyi Jaga, Sports Director of the Faculty of
Management Science, where Damoche belonged, described his death as a
rude shock.
“On that fateful day, when I saw him at the sports complex, I pleaded
with him to perform after the half-time of the males’ final which was
to commence in some minutes.
He agreed and I asked the Sports Director of Industrial Relations
& Public Administration to get a microphone for him since the
females’ final has just come to an end. But no fewer than 15 minutes
after he left for the microphone, we learnt that Damoche has been shot
dead.”
The Head, Department of Accounting & Finance, Dr. Babatunde
Yusuf, who described Damoche’s murder as a dastardly act, expressed
displeasure in the conflicting reports in the media about his death.
“I was sad when I learnt of the demise of Olaniyan. My displeasure,
however is the wrong notion given by some media about LASU to be a den
of cultists.
I must say that in the last eight years or more, we have not
witnessed this kind of situation. No single issue of students killing
has been recorded on campus.”
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