R.I.P Prof. Albert Ilemobade: Murdered out of vengeance

The aides who allegedly gruesomely murdered the Ex FUTA VC,professor Albert Ilemobade have said their desire for revenge drove them to kill him.
About an hour to his death, allegedly in the hands of two of his aides, his two sons- Prof Adesola Ilemobade and Adeseni Ilemobade-called him to wish him happy Father’s Day, celebrated that Sunday, and his response suggested, he had premonition of death.“Adesola said:

 “Our last conversation was on Sunday, Father’s Day, and that was the night he passed on.I called to wish him happy Father’s Day and he told me he was very excited that day. He told me ‘I am happy and I don’t know why I am happy’. We believe that God gave him such a good day as a way to transit him.““Within an hour of that conversation, he passed on”.

 “The second son, Adeseni, repeated he had same conversation with the father when interviewed separately at their No I, Ikere Street, Ijapo, Akure.

 “It was alleged by Adeseni that the former driver came back to kill his father to avenge his sack and detention after his alleged attempt to steal the former VC’s car was foiled by tracking device.“The son alleged that the suspect did that despite the fact that it was the father that asked the police to discontinue the matter, bailed him and even gave him money to continue life elsewhere.“

 Sunday Vanguard was informed by a family member that the deceased, after the greetings from his sons, sat in the living room watching television and later retired to his study at about 8.30pm.

“The suspected assassins were believed to have, before that Sunday, agreed that the only way to succeed in their crime was to lure the deceased from his study to another place within the compound to kill him.“The former driver, who the police called the ‘chief culprit’, said to have been hiding in the gate house, had agreed with the guard to raise the alarm that an electric spark had occurred near the pumping machine close to where Olayemi was hiding.

 “Sunday Vanguard learnt that the guard walked to the window of the study and called the attention of the deceased to the purported electric spark.

“On hearing the alarm raised, the former VC reportedly came out of the house through the kitchen door and walked to the gate house with the guard.“While he was examining the place the guard was pointing at, the former driver allegedly grabbed him from behind and strangulated him while the guard used some of his clothes to cover his mouth to prevent any noise from attracting attention.

“While this was going on, the wife, Olakitan, 73, was in one of the rooms in the house, sleeping.“

After killing him, his body was said to have been dragged from the gate house to the generator house, located at the other end of the compound and dumped there.

“The decomposing corpse was discovered a week after he was declared missing by his family after his killers were apprehended in Ogun State while trying to sell the deceased’s Toyota RAV4 SUV, which they confessed was the reason they killed at a ridiculous price to a buyer who tipped off the police.

“When the suspects were paraded by the police in Akure, they confessed to the chagrin of the Ilemobade family how the deceased was nice to them, but that they needed to kill him ” to make good money and start a new life”.“Olayemi described how he planned the revenge and the reason they had to kill their benefactor in cold blood.

He would go at least once or twice a month for service. “”So he went for the Easter Sunday service in Ondo and the driver dropped him in church and, by the time my father finished the church service, he couldn’t find the driver and the car.

“”He alerted the police in Ondo about the case and I had to go and pick him there and brought him to Akure and we also lodged, complaint at the police station in Ijapo Estate because this is where he lived. Arrests were made. 

“I was very furious because I knew the driver was trying to play pranks but my father suggested that something might have happened.

I had to travel back to my base on Monday and there was no trace of the car or the driver until Wednesday when the driver himself drove the car back and the police arrested him and I don’t know what his confession was. “”I heard after the death of my dad that he actually went to pay for his bail because my father said he didn’t feel good that the driver was in police custody. That was his nature. “”My father saw no need in charging the driver to court. He never told us the end of the story, he just told us that the car had been seen and I kept on calling him to get the full story but he kept the better part of the story from us.It was his close staff in office that told us that daddy actually went to bail him.

 “The driver was sacked after he was released from police custody. I heard my father gave him some money to go and take care of himself but told him his employment had been terminated. “”I believe his coming back to commit the murder was a revenge and the fact that he still wanted money”.

 “The Vicar of the Chapel of Annunciation, Ondo, Ven. Rev Ayodeji Fagbemi, where the deceased worshipped, said the late professor was in church during the Father’s Day celebration and even wrote a cheque in furtherance of the ?work of God in the church.“Fagbemi described his murder allegedly by the two accused persons as callous.

“According to him, the church had been praying for his release when he was purportedly kidnapped not knowing that he had been gruesomely murdered allegedly by his domestic staff.“He faulted the intelligence gathering of the security operatives who were fooled by the aides to believe the former VC was kidnapped.

“The cleric said if the detectives had combed the entire compound, they would have seen the corpse of the deceased the very day he was murdered and dumped in the generator house.“Fagbemi however said that ” it’s not only the police that were fooled but everybody”.“Meanwhile, Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, who raced to the family house of Ilemobade on arrival in Akure from Abuja at about 7pm, last Sunday, declared that the murderers will not go unpunished.“