By Abieyuwa Lucky
Dispute over the transfer and inheritance of individual or family property by near or distant relatives have been a leading cause of deaths and disagreements in many communities in Nigeria.
Envy and sibling rivalry, especially in handling these issues have further contributed to animosities.
In some instances, hatred develops from the absence of a will by the initial owner and or contest of the validity or administration of the will.
A will is a document that states the last wishes of a testator.
A research work titled, inheritance and family conflicts: exploring asset transfer shaping intergenerational relations by Misa Izuhara and Stephen Koppe and published online in 2017, showed an annual increase in inheritance disputes since 1985.
The authors stated that the value of the inheritance sibling rivalry, legacy of divorce and verbal indication or bequeath of the property or business are reasons families engaged in endless violent and deadly battles.
A further breakdown of these causes shows that high-valued inheritances are mostly contested with violence in court, while smaller inheritance disputes are settled out of court.
However, a typical example is the case of one Late. Solomon Agimon, a native of Igueomo Community in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State who was gruesomely murdered by assassins believe to have been sent by his half brother, Johnson Agimon, a top politician in the State.
Investigation revealed that the now late Solomon Agimon been the eldest son of his father inherited a large portion of land from his father.
A situation many opined did not go down well with his half brother Johnson Agimon, hence the bitter acrimony between the two brothers.
Interestingly, while Solomon was said to have been given 10,000ft x 10,000ft, Johnson was given 2000ft x 2000ft by their father before he died.
According to a family source who pleaded anonymity, immediately after the death of their father, trouble started as Mr. Johnson Agimon started dragging ownership of Solomon’s land with him.
The source revealed that sometimes in August 11, 2019, following his failed attempt to grab Mr. Solomon’s share of the land, Mr. Johnson allegedly sent some hoodlums to attack Mr. Solomon and his son Agimon Marcus Noyoze, adding that the father and son were later rescued by a samaritan.
Our source narrated: “Mr. Solomon and his son Agimon Marcus Noyoze were almost beaten to death by Mr. Johnson’s bodyguards and his police officers without any rescue from anywhere until some persons who were going to their farm land started passing through the road.
“On sighting the farmers, the police officers and the bodyguards quickly entered their vehicles and zoomed to unknown location.
“A farmer who acted as good samaritan took the two victims to the police station to incident the matter. Thereafter, the good samaritan took them to the hospital for urgent medical attention.
“Mr. Solomon subsequently reported Mr. Johnson to our family members and even threatened to sue him to court.
“Mr. Johnson later threatened to deal ruthlessly with Solomon if he carries out his planned actions on him. True to his threat, unknown gunmen numbering about 6 invaded Mr. Solomon’s house on September 9, 2019 and shot him several times before leaving him dead”, our source states
Agimon Marcus Noyoze, the Late Solomon’s son who was not at home when the suspected assassins invaded their house to kill his father, according to multiple sources, vowed to expose Johnson’s act to the people.
Marcus it was learnt also vowed to resist his uncle Johnson from taking over his late father’s landed property, a situation it was gathered never went down well with his uncle Johnson.
Marcus was scooped to have escaped death by whiskers in the hands of some gunmen, suspected to have been hired by Mr. Johnson on September 18, 2019 invaded his family house in search of him.
It was learnt that Marcus narrowly escaped through the back door while the alleged assassins apparently out of frustration shot at his direction before shooting sporadically into the air.
The hoodlums who were allegedly accompanied to Marcus family house by Mr. Johnson were reportedly said to have vowed to eliminate Marcus just the same way they did this father.
