Badeh’s family: Suspect lied… our son didn’t have up to N500 on him when he was killed

The family of Alex Badeh, former chief of defence staff, has refuted claims by a suspect in police custody that the late military chief was killed because he resisted the attempt to rob him of a huge sum of money.

In a video widely circulated online, the suspect, who spoke in Hausa, said he and his brother planned the robbery because they learnt that the late Badeh was in possession of money that he wanted to use in buying a parcel of land in Nasarawa state.

The suspect said they had only planned to rob Badeh but that they opened fire on him when he tried using his car to hit them.

However, in an interview with Vanguard at the residence of the deceased, the family countered the claim of the suspect, saying Badeh did not have up to N500 cash on the day that he was killed.

Describing the suspect’s narration as an attempt to deceive the public, the family said Badeh did not discuss any issue about the acquisition of land.

The newspaper said a member of the family gave the reaction at the Abuja residence of the late military chief.

“We called you here because we have been following your report on our son and brother, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, was killed by yet-to-be identified people,” the unidentified family member reportedly said.

“We are not happy with the report being put out to the public there on the circumstances that led to his death.

“We as a family, believe that some people responsible for his death want to deceive the public by hiding the facts of what happened, how it happened and those responsible.

“I want to emphatically tell you here that contrary to the claim that he went to his farm on the fateful day with huge amount of money to buy additional farmland, there was nothing like that.

“In fact, he had no money on him that day, not even N500 in the vehicle. As I told you, no money, I repeat, no money was in that vehicle. Not even N500 was in that vehicle on that day he was killed.

“I repeat that no N500 not even N1000 was in the vehicle he drove that he was killed that day.”

The family member said before he died Badeh was so broke that he could not afford to give someone money to buy panadol.

He said the former defence chief was also unable to pay some of his domestic staff because his pension and bank accounts had been blocked.

“Before his death, a villager who knew he was on the farm that day went to meet him to get money to buy paracetamol for headache. Since he could not afford to give him money, he asked the person if he could go to Panda Market,” he said.

“When the man said he could, our brother told him to pick 10 mudus (measured quantity) of maize to sell in the market and buy drug for himself, saying that was the only help he could render to him since he had no cash to give out.

“He took time to narrate to the person that as he was talking to him, there was a huge refuse dump at his house in Abuja and the people responsible for packing it, that is the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, had refused to do so because he had no money to pay for the packing.

“He added that his cook and the cleaner in his house had not been paid, explaining further that those were the reasons he went to farm on that day to pick some bags of harvested maize, like 100 bags, to sell so as to raise money to settle those issues.

“Again, he told his workers on the farm that since they have blocked his pension, his only source of getting money, only three out of the eight working for him can remain as he wouldn’t have money to pay all the eight anymore.

“He said ‘I’m sorry to tell you this but this is the reality, I can only retain three workers now, the five of you have to go so that I won’t be owing you salaries. He said I can be selling maize and be paying salary for the three that I will retain.

“He did not have N500 on that day they killed him, I swear to God. All this you are hearing is a cook-up story.

“He went to farm to pick some bags of corn to sell so that he could raise money to pay the workers on the farm, the cook and cleaner in the house as well as for the packing of refuse dump here in the house.

“You can see the huge refuse dump here near the wall. If you see this refuse, they had to shift it from this wall closer to the primary school there because of the odour oozing out from the waste bins. You can see the dustbins there (pointed to it). So where did they get the information they released to the public from?”