More light has been shed on the reason, businessman, Afolabi Ogunnaike, hanged himself in his room a few days ago in Lagos.
Ogunnaike left a short message on social media wherein he begged his family to forgive him.
He said in Yoruba: “Kemi, please don’t be annoyed. I don’t want to put you through any stress again”.
He was later found hanging from the ceiling fan in his living room.
One Samuel O. Ajayi, who claims to live 800 metres from the deceased’s house, said the man did not kill himself because of indebtedness to a loan shark. He said, rather, his suicide was connected to a disgraceful incident at his place of work.
According to Ajayi, Ogunnaike was helping a car dealer to sell his cars. The dealer was said to have discovered that the catalyst in the cars he was selling had been tampered with and therefore got his mechanic arrested.
The mechanic was said to have mentioned Ogunnaike as his accomplice with whom he shared the money from the illegal sale of the catalysts.
The issue degenerated into disgrace, embarrassment and indebtedness for the deceased and it was believed that this might have pushed the man to end it all.
Ajayi wrote: “Going by the information available to me, he did not kill himself because of any loan shark or anything related.
“His house is on a street which is less than 800 metres from my own.
“I still saw one of his friends earlier today and we discussed the issue at length.
“According to very reliable information, he was working at a car lot and was the supervisor or something like that.
“The owner of the car lot usually brought cars from abroad to sell and the late guy, popularly known as Afo, was in charge of selling them.
“There was an ugly development whereby they were to sell some cars and at the point of selling, they discovered that the catalysts had been removed.
“Angrily, the mechanic that had been working on the cars was promptly arrested and upon interrogation, he confessed that he and Afo had been the ones removing catalysts from cars to be sold.
“He, the mechanic, reportedly said Afo usually brought the cars to his shop, perhaps on the pretense that they needed to fix some things, and the catalysts would be removed.
“The owner of the car lot decided to do a disclaimer on his social media pages and told his friends and customers that Afo was no longer working with him.
“It must be noted that a couple of the car lot owner’s friends who Afo had worked with were to later come out to say that they faced similar situations when he was with them.
“Afo was promptly arrested and taken to Panti where he and the mechanic spent days and were on the verge of being taken to court when a plea bargain was entered into and when the cost of the catalysts were calculated, it was well over N2million and he and the mechanic were to pay equally.
“The mechanic had reportedly paid his own.
“It was while trying to raise the money that he decided to end it all.
“I also heard this morning that Afo also had issues with another guy in Canada who he had failed business transactions and he asked people to help him beg him.
“He had, unknown to anyone, attempted suicide couple of weeks before but everyone thought he was seriously ill.
“On the fateful day he died, he had taken his kids and wife to (church) and gave them his church garment (name of church withheld) and told them he would come and meet them.
“It was after he got home after dropping his family in the church that he did that suicide video.
“As per his last wishes, his family has been moved to Ibadan.”
