The bond of brotherhood between two Fulani herdsmen in Nasarawa State, which was broken by a missing cattle, has resulted in the death of one of them.
Bello Musa, who is 22 years old is now in the custody of the Homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation Department of the Nasarawa Police Command, Lafia, after being arrested and accused of killing his elder brother, Abdullahi Musa, with a machete. He was said to have given the deceased a fatal cut on the neck, when a scuffle ensued between them over the missing cattle.
Trouble started between the siblings when they noticed that one cattle had strayed and mixed with their own herd while they were grazing their cattle in Akuwate village in Doma Local Government Area.
As Sunday Sun learnt from the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ahmed Bello, the incident happened on March 9, 2018 and was promptly reported at Akuwate Police Station. But the case was later transferred on March 25, to the SCID at the headquarters of the command in Lafia, the state capital.
In a chat with Sunday Sun at the police command headquarters, the detained suspect, Bello recounted what happened: “My brother, Abdullahi and myself took our cattle for grazing. Later we discovered that one cattle which was not our own had joined our herd. We were three who made the discovery – Abdullahi, one Ibrahim and myself. Abdullahi and I agreed to sell it. Later he asked me to go and sell it in the market. As I was taking the cattle, it escaped from me. I returned back to tell Abdullahi. He did not believe me.
“He accused of selling the cattle N300,000. I tried to explain to him, but he insisted that I sold the cattle for N300,000. My father tried to settle the matter, without success.
Continuing, Bello said: “Abdullahi said that I must pay N300,000 for the cattle or he would kill me. I challenged him on why he would want to kill me over the cattle that escaped from me. Then he began making phone calls to his friends, telling them I am a liar and that I sold the cattle for N300,000. I became very angry and we started fighting. In the course of the fight, he injured me on my right hand and I cut him with my cutlass on the neck.”
Bello then ran to the General Hospital in Eleye area to treat his wound. The eagle-eyed doctor who attended to him, became suspicious after listening to the story of how he sustained the injury. He carefully treated him and then stepped aside to make a call to the Eleye Police Station.
A team of policemen came to the hospital and arrested him. He was subsequently handed over to the Nasarawa police headquarters where he was detained for further investigation.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department, Lafia, Mr. Yunusa Akira told Sunday Sun that when homicide detectives interrogated Bello, he confessed that he killed his brother. He said that the cutlass allegedly use by Bello to kill his brother was recovered by detectives investigating the case, and added that deceased had since been buried in line with Islamic injunctions.
The bereaved of the late Abdulllahi and Bello, Alhaji Musa, who has been weighed down the by pain of losing a son and having another son stand trial for murder, expressed pain that his sons ignored his entreaties to them over the matter of the missing cattle. He said: “I tried to resolve the misunderstanding between Bello and Abdullahi over the cattle. They refused to listen to me. I was shocked when I heard that Bello killed his elder brother, Abdullahi, when a fight broke out between them over the missing cattle.”
Commissioner of Police Bello added that I was unfortunate incident. The suspect would soon be charged to court for murder.
-Sun