…Says he was in Imo for constitution review assignment
“On Sunday morning, I was in my room waiting for his driver to come so that we can go to the airport to bring him home. It was our father’s personal assistant that first called via the telephone to ask us if we have heard what happened. When we said ‘no’, he ended the call.
“Maybe he did not want to break the news to us. A few minutes later, our eldest brother came into the house crying, and he told us about the news of our father’s death. The first thing I did was to call his telephone line to confirm and it did not go through. Afterward, everybody in the house began to cry.”
That was how the news of the death of Alhaji Ahmed Ali Gulak, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and one-time political adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, hit his immediate family, Mohammed, his son disclosed, yesterday.
Gulak was killed by gunmen on his way to Sam Mbakwe Airport, Owerri, Imo State on Sunday morning.
Speaking on the incident, Mohammed told BBC Pidgin that his father was in Imo as part of the constitutional review committee, adding that he was in his room on Sunday morning, waiting for a driver to take them to the airport to receive his father before news of the shooting broke.
According to him, Gulak’s personal assistant was the first person to call the family via telephone to ask if they had heard what happened and ended the call when the response was in the negative.
Mohammed said the oldest son broke the news to the family when he entered the house in tears. On what took Gulak to Imo, he said the deceased was part of the committee on ongoing constitution review.
“On Saturday, I called him at exactly 8pm to greet and wish him safe journey back home the following day. He was happy and told me ‘God bless you, my son’,” Mohammed said.
Mohammed spoke as the murder of Gulak continued to elicit condemnation in the polity. Among those who mourned the late politician, yesterday were Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State;Northern governors; Ohanaeze Ndigbo; APC; House of Representatives Minority Caucus; Labour and Employment Minister, Dr Chris Ngige, former presidential candidate, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim; and Arewa youths among others.