A former lecturer of Industrial Chemistry at the Kaduna State University, Professor Samuel Achi, has said that his son, Sunday Achi, was strangled at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University mosque in Bauchi State in 2004 when Isa Pantami, Nigeria’s minister of communications and digital economy was the chief Imam.
The 67-year-old don in an interview with Punch, said his 24-year-old son and 400-level student of Architecture at the ATBU at the time was murdered by Muslim students over allegations that he circulated a tract that contained blasphemous content.
According to Achi, his late son, Sunday was the leader of the students’ fellowship of the Evangelical Church Winning All Ministry but the Pantami-led Muslim community at the university pronounced a ‘fatwa’ on him for sharing tracts that contained blasphemous contents.
The Muslim students, he said, killed his son and threw his body off ATBU mosque, adding that he was able to retrieve the remains of Sunday with the intervention of the then governors of Kaduna and Bauchi states.
The academic, who said he had forgiven all those involved in the sadistic killing of his son, however, stressed that were Pantami, who was the then chief imam of the mosque a man of peace, the killing of his son would not have occurred.
“As a Christian, my belief is that even though they killed him by pronouncing fatwa against him, he was doing God’s work, so, I don’t think we have to worry about it. God has comforted us and we have been able to forgive everybody that did that terrible act, he said.
“Of course, we have no control over it but the blood of my son would always hunt whoever has a hand in killing him.”
When asked specifically if he was aware that Pantami was the Chief Imam at the ATBU mosque at the time, the sexagenarian, who sounded slightly still heartbroken and not ready to reopen the memories, said, “Of course yes, it is all over the place, I don’t want to go back on that.”
“We are not surprised to hear news out of it. We have actually forgiven everybody involved in his killing,” he added.
A top official of ATBU confirmed to the publication that Sunday was killed in December 2004 when Pantami was the Chief Imam of the school.
“We lost a student called Sunday Achi in 2004 when Pantami was the Chief Imam. Pantami was a student but was later retained in the school,” he said.
But when contacted, Pantami’s aide, Uwa Suleiman, said the claim by Samuel was not true.
“The allegations are not true. Do your research but the allegations are not true,” she said.
Pantami has come under fire and calls for his resignation over his past controversial comments supporting terrorist groups including the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
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