Man Found Hanging In His Room At Ibadan

Wonders, they say, shall never end or how does one explain the decision of a man to hang himself about two weeks to moving to his own house? That’s the riddle the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) of the Oyo State Police Command is currently trying to unravel.

The 43-year-old father of three and Ijesa, Osun State-born Kehinde Fajojuto, popularly called ‘baba-re-a-gbe’  did not leave any usual suicide note as to the reason for his action. Fajojuto was said to have lived in SW 5/308, Osoba Street, along Foko-Oke-Ado, Ibadan, for over a decade before the incident.

He was said to have used a rope to hang himself in his sitting room on Saturday night while his wife and children were sleeping in the bedroom.
According to his wife, Taiwo, it was their first daughter, Wumi, who woke up early to iron her dress in the sitting room where her father was sleeping, in preparation for the Sunday morning church service that led to early discovery of the suicide.

“The door to the parlour where Kehinde slept was locked from inside and as much as Wumi knocked for her father to open the door, there was no answer,” the woman said, adding that it was at that point that Wumi called her and she too did all she could for her husband to open the door to no avail.
She said she had to break the door open and was shocked to see her husband hanging on a rope tied to the ceiling. With the thought that he could still be rescued since she didn’t know the exact time the deed was done, she did not waste time before she cut the rope and brought him down. But by then, he was already dead.

The police authorities later claimed that the death had to be investigated since they did not meet Kehinde hanging. The state Police Command spokesperson, Olabisi Clet- Ilobanafor, while confirming that the body was taken by the police from the Iyaganku Division led by one Inspector John Ago to the morgue at the New Adeoyo State Hospital, Off MKO Abiola Way (former Ring Road, disclosed that the state Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Indabawa, had ordered full investigation into the matter.

His widow, Taiwo, a trader at Alesinloye Market, gave a clue as to what could have led to her husband’s action, recalling her discussion with the deceased a month earlier about the debt he incurred through a loan he obtained from NAPO, a money-lending arrangement targeted at traders who earn daily income.

The widow explained that the debt had worried her husband so much and that she had been pleading with him to take it easy. She said she counselled him to let them take the matter to God in prayer while they go and plead with the operators of the loan facility for understanding. She said she also offered to take off him the responsibilities of feeding the family. Unknown to her, the man had another plan even though, he agreed to seek spiritual solution and was directed to engage in white fasting for two weeks. The mother of three explained that her late husband was observing the fast, recalling that he even broke the fast with ordinary and saltless yam prepared for him by her the very night he committed suicide. Not knowing it was his last supper, the baby of the house, a toddler, joined him on the meal.

The belief by neighbours is perhaps the deceased spent the NAPO loan to roof his new house