Warning: Graphic Content
We’ve all forgotten to pay rent on time but thankfully, landlords are very good about reminding us when rent is due. It’s almost like their income is entirely based on taking other people’s income but that’s a discussion for another time. This story from Nigeria poses the question, what if you forgot to pay rent and you just never heard anything from your landlord? How long would it take for you to raise suspicions about your missing landlord? Would you ever say anything? I know I sure wouldn’t.
In early 2018, John Aderemi Abiola informed some colleagues of his intention to travel to Port Harcourt, the capital and largest city in Rivers State, Nigeria, then return to his home of Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, Nigeria, for the Eid-el-Kabir celebration at the end of June. However, when the time came for the Eid-el-Kabir celebration, no one heard from Abiola.
No suspicions of Abiola’s disappearance were raised to the local authorities for four entire years until his fellow landlords decided something had to be done about the overgrown brush around his home. Because, of course. The Adeosun/Idi Orogbo Landlords’ Association approached the Apete Police Station, where they were given the nod to maintain Abiola’s home properly.
After getting the green light from the police, the organization hired laborers to clear the brush around the home. Landlords not doing repairs themselves, shocking.
“The laborers were said to have first noticed Abiola’s Volkswagen Golf car which the bush had covered before the clearing.”
Clearly, the car hadn’t moved for a while.
Another landlord, Mohammed Ademola, decided to enter the home and check Abiola’s room when he saw the bedroom door was ajar. Landlords being nosey, imagine that. Upon entering the room, Ademola saw Abiola’s decomposed remains on his bed.
“Abiola’s boxers, he said, were seen around his waist while his rotten flesh had eaten the top he wore. He said that Abiola’s phones, a laptop, a TV, and his wardrobe, among other items in the room, were also found.”
While Abiola’s fellow landlords were concerned about his whereabouts after his home had grown into disarray and probably lowered the property value in the area, the residents of a bungalow he constructed in Ibadan were not. Abiola became a landlord in 2018 prior to his disappearance and not a single resident reported him missing in the four years leading up to the discovery of his body in his home.
It still remains unclear why the tenants never reported Abiola missing. Either he had already soured relations with his tenants by the time of his disappearance to the point that not hearing from him was a blessing or they just stopped paying rent and never bothered finding out why they weren’t hassled over it but regardless, good for them!
