BY Dayo Johnson, Akure

60-year-old Alfa Iliasu Waheed, a traditional doctor, woke up, last Tuesday, without any premonition that death was lurking around the corner of a bungalow he used as a   psychiatric home in   Idanre area of Ondo State.

Every morning, minutes before his morning Fajr (Muslim prayers) with patients in his psychiatric home, he would unchain the patients hands leaving their leg chains   to administer herbal concoction on them through their hands. But on that ill- fated   Tuesday, Waheed forgot to chain the hands of one of them after their morning medication.

Alfa was popular in Idanre because he was a specialist in healing psychiatric patients and this attracted customers from across the country to his ‘clinic’ located at   No 9, Isanwo Ijigbokin Street.

He was said to have taken over from his deceased father whose   name rings  a  bell in Idanre  when it comes to healing mentally derailed persons.
Alfa had,  since his father’s death, made  a living out of treating insane people and his treatment proved  effective.

Reports had it that Waheed,  a native of Osogbo, Osun State but married to a woman in  Ondo State, about a year ago, decided to quit the job.
He, however, returned to his first love when he could no longer meet his financial obligations to his wife and children from an Okada business he ventured into.

Sunday Vanguard gathered that the deceased Alfa still did not suspect danger when he noticed that a 24-year-old-patient Ijisakin Ayoola, brought from Lagos by his parents for treatment, was not chained in his hands.

Ayoola’s attempt to light a match stick was said to have attracted the deceased’s  attention who, at that time, was  reportedly attending to another patient.
Alfa forcefully removed the match stick and box   from the patient, a development that did not go down well with Ayoola.

The patient was said to have stormed out of the room after he was rebuked by his doctor that he wanted to raze the building.
Although  Waheed knew that his action infuriated Ayoola, he underestimated his reaction which later cost him his life.

After ensuring that the match stick had been removed from the patient and placed where he could  not lay hold of it anymore, he reportedly shifted his attention to the other patient not knowing that Ayoola was angry with him.

The traditional  doctor, according to one of the relations of one of the patients in the clinic, Mrs Bilikisu Adedeji, complained that if he was not there, Ayoola would have set the whole house ablaze.

Ayoola was said to have left the room only to return with a broken bottle which he used to stab Waheed  on the neck from behind while attending to the other patient.
The eye witness narrated that Alfa was backing Ayoola when he returned to the room armed with the broken bottle which he drove  deep inside the neck of his doctor in front of other patients who watched helplessly as Waheed  wriggled in pain on the floor bleeding profusely and crying for help.

They (patients), according to reports, joined their doctor to cry oblivious of the gravity of what had happened to Waheed.

The cry for help by the Alfa and the unusual cries from the inmates attracted  the relations of patients in the other rooms within the clinic but, before help could come, Waheed  was said to have bled profusely and became so weak only to die before he got to hospital for medical attention.

A source said that following a  report lodged at Idanre  police station, the DPO, SP Martins Ohalete, dispatched a team to the scene of  crime where policemen met the deceased in a pool of his own blood and was consequently rushed to hospital but gave up the ghost before any medical treatment could be administered on him.

Speaking with Sunday Vanguard, Ondo State   police image maker,   Wole Ogodo, who confirmed the murder, said the suspect tried to escape after committing the crime but was apprehended.

Ogodo said the suspect was among the patients the deceased was treating for mental disorder in his clinic.
According to him, the   suspect was being detained at the State Criminal Department(SCID) while detectives are probing the immediate cause of the death.

All other patients in the clinic have been evacuated by their relations for fear of police arrest.
Waheed’s  bungalow with large compound has been sealed off by detectives from the state police command.

Meanwhile, an Akure Chief Magistrate Court has ordered that the suspect, Ayoola, be remanded in police custody.
Ayoola pleaded guilty to murder charge after being arraigned.
The court adjourned the case to  July 23, 2014.