Pent-up anger from the increasing reports of these atrocities and government’s perceived docility is believed to have fuelled anger leading to the clash.

The nation’s attention was on police clampdown on peaceful #OccupyLekkiTollgate protesters on Saturday February 13, 2021, while Sasa, less than 3km away from the Ojoo military barracks in Ibadan, boiled.

When reports from Ibadan began trending on February 14, the whole nation was in  shock. No one was sure of the casualty figure, and little did Nigerians know that the violence sparked by the death of an unknown cobbler will result in a North-South food supply blockade that lasted for over a week.

How the death of a cobbler sparked a clash that reverberated across Nigeria

Remains of burnt house around Sasa market razed during the clash. Photo: Olamide Fawole Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

The death of a cobbler trying to broker peace between a pregnant Yoruba woman and a Hausa-speaking porter sparked the clash.

That’s what multiple reports say. Some say he was hit with a diabolical ring, became unconscious and died a few hours later. Rage from his kinsmen trying to avenge his death sparked a violent clash when the Hausa leaders failed to fish out the culprit.

Shops and houses within and around the market were razed. Official figures said the clash claimed 10 lives, some residents laughed it off and said it was more. The casualty figure is about ten times what official figures say, residents told me.

 

A section of the Sasa market razed during the clash. Photo: Olamide Fawole Designer: Tonte Briggs.

Days passed, then weeks and now a month has passed and reports remain vague on the personality of the man whose death sparked the clash. No friends or family cried out for justice. No one claimed to be his relative and came forward to tell us about him. There are no photographs of him in the media. No one can tell us what he looked like. The pregnant woman also appeared to have dropped off the radar.

There is almost no information about the man whose death sparked a clash that reverberated across the nation and forced four northern governors to travel miles to Ibadan. Not for a political campaign or social event. A clash sparked by the death of an unknown local cobbler forced them out of their cozy State Houses to a remote community 130 kilometers away from Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest commercial hub.

Over the course of two weeks, I combed every available source I know to find information about the cobbler and the pregnant woman. Who was Adex? What did he look like? How old was he? Where is his family? How are they coping after his death? Where do they live? Why is nobody talking about the man? I had a lot of questions, but I got nothing apart from a name and profession. He was Adeola Sakiru. A shoe cobbler.

 

Shops and houses, two streets away from Sasa market, were not spared in the clash. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

Who was the pregnant woman that engaged the Hausa porter in a fight? Where is she? What is her account of the incident? Again, I found nothing and found no one who knew her.

I called multiple sources in Ibadan including an old schoolmate living around Moniya. After searching for a few days, he found Wale who owns a shop close to the Sasa market. Wale claimed to know Adex and a friend who knows where his family lives.

With little hopes of finding what I needed, on February 27, 2021, I took a 140km road trip from my home in Lagos to Ibadan to find answers that no one will give me if I sat behind my desk in Lagos.

 

I left Lagos for Ibadan at 6am, Saturday February 27, 2021, in search of answers. Photo: Michael Orodare. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

I went to Igangan first. The town had made headlines over the killing of a businessman Dr Fatai Aborode on December 11, two months  before Adex’s death on February 12.

I returned to Ibadan late on Saturday evening and by 10am on Sunday, I was back on the street searching for Adex’s family. After waiting with my old schoolmate for about 30 minutes at the Idi-Ose bus stop along the Lagos-Oyo expressway, Wale showed up. A short, slim, bearded man in his late 30s.

I wanted to see the destruction of Sasa market and the spot where a fight between the cobbler and porter escalated into a crisis that forced the nation to pay attention.

 

Those who know say the total loss at Sasa market is worth over N200 million. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

We walked to the other side of the expressway into Idi-Ose community, to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) along Moniya road. We chose to go to Sasa market by motorcycle. The first rider we called was a Hausa man, who refused to go to Sasa, Wale spoke Hausa to him and he said he would not like to go because –

“Yorubas are killing Hausas there”.

Wale persuaded him and assured him normalcy had returned to the market.

A police van at the Sasa garage after normalcy returned to the area. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

As we rode closer to Sasa, I saw remains of houses that had been burnt. I counted about four houses and 12 shops razed two streets away from the market. The Sasa police station behind the market was not torched. I was stunned to see a police station close to the market. How did the crisis escalate to that level if security operatives are just around the corner?

Normalcy had indeed returned to Sasa. A police van was stationed at the major road entering the market. A few days before my visit, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state had ordered the reopening of the market. But Sasa is no longer what it used to be.

Before the clash, six out of 10 traders and pedestrians around the market were Hausas, according to my hosts. But now, just a handful of them are around. Many fled during the crisis.

I walked round the market with my partner taking photographs. He was harassed by a few market boys, but Wale’s presence saved the day. He is popular in that area, with two out of three persons we passed exchanging pleasantries with him.

You can’t write such stories or visit homes of people without having a local contact to show you around and lead you to the right subjects to speak with.

While we were still discussing at the market, Wale’s friend whom I never saw throughout the time I spent in Ibadan sent the address to Adex’s house. That was after agreeing to his terms. He wanted money.

 

What I saw at Sasa Market

Traders at Sasa market may have lost over N200m to the clash. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

The Sasa market I saw on Sunday February 28, 2021, was in ruins.

Goods and properties worth over N200 million may have been lost in the clash. More than 50 shops were razed and houses were not spared. Many traders had told a Nigerian newspaper – The Guardian, that they lost goods worth millions.

A two-storey building occupied by Hausa-speaking traders and porters was burnt down.

Previously occupied by traders of Northern extract, this building was razed during the clash. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

From the top of the burnt building, I saw what is left of Sasa – nothing, aside from debris. I walked into the rooms, only remnants from burnt properties littered the ground.

 

More than 50 shops were razed and houses were not spared. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

In search of answers to my questions, Wale led us to the street where the misunderstanding that led to the fracas started.

 

Remains of burnt shops at Sasa market. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

A rough and untarred street that had just been graded, apparently due to the governors’ visit. The street links the market to the Ojoo-Moniya road and it is one of the busiest where traders and porters ply to move their goods to the highway to get vehicles.

It was on that street that the disturbance started.

.

Scene from the street where the Sasa market clash started on Thursday February 11, 2021. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

One of the few houses at Sasa market spared during the crisis. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

Wale pointed at a locked shop on our right and told us it was Adex’s shop. He asked us to excuse him and he walked into a carpentry workshop. We all slowed down as we walked down to the major road.

 

Adex’s shop (second from right) remains locked after his death on Friday February 12, 2021. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

“This is the carpenter that was with Adex when the incident happened on that day,” Wale said.

I was excited! All the accounts I’ve heard were hearsays, now I have an eyewitness. I wanted  to jump for joy, but a tragedy had occurred here. And the community is still counting losses.

Olowo (right) narrates how a misunderstanding that claimed his friend’s life snowballed into an ethnic violence. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

Abdulrazaq Olowo, a carpenter, says he and Adeola sat together on Thursday February 11, 2021 and they watched as the porter and pregnant woman argued across the road.

Olowo told me he’s been friends with Adeola for more than 10 years and the two men have shops beside each other.

He was willing to share the story of what happened on that day. He told us so much falsehood has been flying around and no one has asked him questions as the ‘number one witness’.

He told me he could have died too, but his reluctance to intervene in the misunderstanding saved him.

 

Olowo holds a dried tomato seen at the spot where Adeola fell and hit his head on the concrete. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

That evening, Olowo said, they sat in front of their shops exchanging banter and preparing to go home when tragedy struck.

“This is where we sat on that day around 6pm,” Olowo recounted, pointing at the front of Adex’s shop.

“A porter was coming with a basket full of tomatoes heading to the main road, he discovered the basket was damaged and decided to drop it beside the road close to the shop of the pregnant woman. He rushed to the market to get another basket where he transferred the tomatoes.”

After transferring the tomatoes into a new basket, the pregnant owner of the shop told the porter to pack the remnant from the ground. But the porter refused, claiming he was in a hurry as they were busy moving goods for customers.

His colleagues met him there and were ready to help him put the basket on his head, but the pregnant woman held his cloth and insisted she wouldn’t let him go unless he packs the remnants in front of her shop.

 

Dried tomatoes litter the spot where the porter reportedly attacked Adeola Designer: Tonte Briggs.

“We sat here watching and told the woman to let the guy go because Hausa people like trouble,” Olowo said.

But she insisted she wouldn’t let him go. Her insistence claimed a life the next morning and dozens of others died under 48 hours.

The unknown pregnant woman was simply identified as Iya Fatima. I was informed she was delivered of a baby on Friday February 26, 2021, two days before my visit.

In the heat of the argument between Iya Fatima and the porter, Olowo said four other porters intervened.

 

From the spot of the incident, Olowo points at Iya Fatima’s shop, the pregnant woman who engaged in an argument with a porter. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

“They just held the pregnant woman and forced her to sit on the ground. This was why we became worried and had to intervene,” Olowo told me.

He believes the clash would have been avoided if Iya Fatima had listened to them.

As they stood up to broker peace between the woman and the porters, Adeola crossed the road to the scene before Olowo. His swiftness cost him his life.

“He took about three steps before me because I was still reluctant to stand up. I was tired and just wanted to go home to rest,” the carpenter narrated.”

 “Before I could get closer, Adex had been hit by one of the Hausa guys on the right side of his neck and he fell hitting his head on concrete on the drainage.”

Samrok hospital where Adeola was first treated, its sign post indicates it is a ‘delivery and child healthcare center’. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

Olowo believes Adeola was hit with a diabolical ring.

“As I was screaming and calling for help, the porters started removing knives as if they had prepared for a fight. One of them started chasing me to attack me. My apprentices came to my rescue.”

Adeola was first taken to a nearby hospital (Samrok Delivery Home and Child Healthcare) and later to Racham Hospital, at Alfonso where he died around 3am on Friday February 12, 2021.

“When reports got to me that Adex had died, we instructed other traders on this street not to open shops. I went to the market to inform people and went home. By 2pm I heard reports from home that there was a crisis at Sasa with many dead.”

Olowo led us to the spot where the tomatoes fell. We saw dried tomatoes still littering the road side. It would be difficult to explain how those things actually led to a fight that claimed a life and dozens more.

Then we went to the hospital where Adex was first taken to, a few steps away from the spot where the incident happened.

Samrok Delivery Home and Child Healthcare is what a medical facility should never be. Nobody should be seeking medical help at that facility.

In June 2020, when the Oyo State government shut down five hospitals for quackery and endangering peoples’ lives, Samrok should have made the list.

 

Olowo gave us the direction to Iya Fatima’s house.

He wasn’t sure of the specific address, he only knew the area. He also gave us the address of the hospital where Adex breathed his last.

Iya Fatima, I was informed, is the owner of the shop where the Hausa porter left tomato waste and that Adex was planning to move to the shop beside her shop just before his death. His former shop, just adjacent the new one had been sold and occupants told to vacate.

 

Scene from the community where we went searching for Iya Fatima. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

With this scanty information from Olowo, we went searching for Iya Fatima.

She lives on an unnamed street along the Sasa-Alapa road, about two minutes by car from Sasa market.

We started going from one house to another asking for “the woman who just gave birth and has a shop at Sasa”. After asking at three houses, we found Iya Fatima’s house. Residents of the unplastered bungalow at the dead-end of the street confirmed that Iya Fatima truly lives in that house and had just put to bed two days before our visit but she has “moved out of the neighbourhood to stay with her mother-in-law since she gave birth”. Her neighbours wouldn’t give us her phone number or address of her new home.

They insisted they don’t know and claimed she is not coming back soon.

I saw signs that it is an area occupied by tertiary institution students. The Federal School of Statistics is just about 3km away and students union election posters dot the area.

By the time we left Iya Fatima’s house, the mystery of who she really is was not as deep as it was before I left Lagos. I concluded she had not been invited by the police for questioning. Perhaps nobody was even investigating the clash and no one would ever be punished for the disaster that kept a nation on the edge.

 

From Iya Fatima’s house to Racham Hospital, Alfonso bus stop, is just three minutes by foot. Adeola was confirmed dead at Racham (a Hebrew word for compassionate) on Friday February 12, 2021.

 

A medical officer at Racham says when Adeola was brought in here around 6pm, he had a GCS (Glasgow Coma Scale) of 6/15 which shows he was unconscious. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

“I was not available, but I was informed the atmosphere here was tense on that day,” a medical officer at Racham, who would not like to be named, told me. “So many people were outside the hospital threatening to cause mayhem if he was not quickly attended to.”

Accommodating and calm, he welcomed me into his office after a nurse informed him we were waiting at the reception.

He just returned to work a week before my visit. He had gone on isolation after testing positive for COVID-19.

He told me he saw the Sasa crisis in the news while he was away.

A doctor friend stood in for him and when he returned he was briefed about the incident but didn’t bother to check Adeola’s file until my visit.

He asked the nurses to get Adeola’s file and he took his time to explain every detail to me.

According to hospital records, Adeola was 46 years old.

“When he was brought in around 6pm, he had a GCS (Glasgow Coma Scale) of 6/15 which shows he was unconscious,” the medical officer told me.

The GCS is used to assess the level of consciousness of a patient with brain injury. The GCS of a person who is conscious but not alert would be around 10/15, while a person who is conscious and alert will have 15/15. The GCS of a dead person will read 3/15, he patiently explained to me the way he would have if he was teaching  a 100-level medical class.

 

Hospital records show Adeola’s vitals were okay when he was brought to Racham. His pulse, respiratory rate and blood pressure were all normal. He was stable for about 5 hours and was being managed until he started having respiratory issues at midnight.

The medical officer said Raised Intracranial Pressure (growing pressure inside the skull) from intracranial haemorrhage (bleeding within the brain/skull) and respiratory insufficiency led to Adeola’s death at 5am on the day Hausas and Yorubas went after one another at Sasa.

Deaths from head injuries account for 34 percent of all traumatic deaths, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) says. Beginning at age 30, the mortality risk after head injury begins to increase.

To manage patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), medical experts recommend a well equipped ICU and a multidisciplinary approach.

“Due to the atmosphere Adeola was brought in, there were a lot of people outside issuing threats, they couldn’t recommend his transfer to a more advanced medical facility,” he said.

I was beginning to get answers to my questions.

After spending about 45 minutes at Racham hospital, we went looking for Adeola’s family. Nobody on the team had been there, and Wale was banking on the address and direction sent by his friend. It was already some minutes past noon.

 

We waited for long at the bus stop before getting a vehicle to take us to Moniya. Long queues at fuel stations had hit Ibadan that weekend, reducing the number of vehicles and motorcycles on the road.

When we eventually got to Moniya garage, after waiting at Alfonso for about 20 min, there were just a few motorcycle and tricycle riders at the garage who knew the address. The man we had hired before getting to the garage told us he quickly went on a trip after waiting for us endlessly.

We were impatient, but it didn’t change anything, we were still asking riders around when the man we had engaged returned.

A dusty road inside Onikainkain community, a few meters away from Moniya motor park, leads to the new site where Adeola lived with his family. Onikainkain is at Moniya, and about 10 minutes drive from Ojoo, where one of the busiest motor parks in Ibadan is located.

It wasn’t so easy locating the house, we started asking around until we got to Idi-Oro estate where some residents directed us to the house.

 

Adeola lived in this uncompleted building with his wife and four children before his death. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

A resident pointed at the house and told us the road we’d have taken is still ahead, but there is a shorter pedestrian route through someone’s yard. We had to park the tricycle and walk down.

It was the sight of the house that first gave me the chills. An uncompleted single room best described as a shack sitting on a plot of land.

Adeola lived a less-than-modest Muslim life in that small room with his wife and four children – ages 15, 11, 8 and 4.

A six-by-six bed, two singles and a double-seater chair, a rug that didn’t cover the entire room, a standing fan, 21-inch TV set, DVD and a deck player are all he had in the room.

The house, indoor and outdoor, is unplastered, some parts of the roof that should be covered with bricks were covered with old rusty roofing sheets. As I sat on the sofa close to the exit leading to the toilet and bathroom observing while Samuel did the talking, I became broken. I had a lot of questions.

Adeola Sakirudeen – that is his name. Contrary to hospital records, his wife Abosede Adeola told me he was in his early 50s.

 

Undated photo of Adeola Sakiru who lost his life on February 12, 2021 following his intervention in a minor altercation. Photo: Family. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

Not too tall, he looked calm in all the pictures I saw in his house and his wife confirmed that he was a calm and easy-going man who never got involved in trouble.

His wife who sat on the floor throughout the time we spent there with her hijab on, told me they’ve been married for 15 years but have been friends for 17 years.

Her voice went from hushed to sombre and tears dropped as she recounted Adeola’s last moments.

“He dropped me at the shop around Ojoo that morning as usual and went to his shop,” Abosede, 40, told me.

In the days before his death, Adeola didn’t go to his shop. His wife told me he had been supervising the molding of blocks to extend his house beyond the one room apartment and this had kept him busy at home for three days (Monday, Tuesday and partly on Wednesday). He planned to start the building project at the end of February. On the  day he decided to resume work, he never returned home.

 

Abosede is worried her N15,000 monthly income cannot raise her four children. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

Adeola was interred in a small grave beside his uncompleted house the day he died. There is no headstone to identify who lies in the grave. Only the protruding ground indicates there is a body underneath. Nothing there suggests that the death of the man lying there unsettled Nigeria, a nation of 200 million people, for over a week and sparked a food supply blockade.

Abosede didn’t believe it when her sister-in-law went to her shop to inform her that her husband was in the hospital.

“I was surprised because he wasn’t sick,” she said.

“Since his death, we’ve been coping, but the vacuum is too wide. If he had travelled we know he will be back, but that is no longer the case,” she said, weeping.

Adeola was interred in this small grave beside his house. Photo: Olamide Fawole. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

His first child, Toheeb Adeola, a student in early senior secondary school, wants to be an engineer but he has been pushed to the Arts department after changing schools. Adeola withdrew him from a private to a public secondary school due to lack of funds. Now that their breadwinner is dead, his wife is worried –  her major concern is how to raise the children and ensure they get good education.

Toheeb is the only family member who saw Adeola shortly before the incident.

He said on his way to the auto electrical workshop popularly known as ‘rewire’ where he is an apprentice, he passed through his father’s shop that evening.

Abosede shows me photos of Adeola displaying his wares at his shop. Photo: Family. Designer: Tonte Briggs.

 

Toheeb saw his father sitting in front of his shop with Olowo. It was the last time he saw him alive.

I couldn’t leave that house without a little financial support for the kids.

By the time I left Adeola’s home at Onikainkain for Ojoo to have lunch with my team members, I had gotten answers and knew enough about Adeola Sakirudeen beyond the faceless artisan whose death sparked ethnic violence in Sasa.

I left the house broken. A puzzle solved. But a family remains in misery.

 

 

I kept wondering about his family, about how they would survive on the wife’s N15,000 income as a sales person at a drinks depot.

I have been unsettled since the visit. The last time I felt this bad was in March 2019 when I went to cover the collapse of a building housing a primary school at Ita-faji in Lagos Island. I was heartbroken seeing how little kids trapped were being rescued. It’s two years now and the images of parents breaking down in tears as they identified their kids at the mortuary still flashes. I saw tragedy face to face.

 

Abosede showed us photos of Adeola in his workshop and told us he was a hardworking and peace loving man who never wanted trouble.

Life wasn’t so smooth for the family when Adeola was alive. Things are bound to become  worse now that the man who shouldered the family’s responsibilities is no more. How will they survive without him?

How far can Abosede’s N15,000 monthly income take the family? It is obvious Adeola’s wife and four children need help.

But Abosede is not concerned about food. She told me her top priority is the education and future of her four children.

“That is the only area where I need help to raise these children.”

And she believes that aided by the potential benevolence of government, family members and the public, she can fulfil her dreams for Toheeb and his three siblings.