By Emmanuel Daniji

For Samson, it appeared to be an ordinary job.

A customer needed a mechanic to attend to a Mercedes-Benz, and the mechanic, who operated a workshop around Warike Estate in Abijo, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, reportedly left to inspect the vehicle.

He never returned.

Samson was allegedly lured to the area on Tuesday, September 15, under the guise of repairing the vehicle. But instead of meeting a customer in need of his services, he was reportedly taken into a bush and hacked to death.

The incident has left residents and those who knew the mechanic asking how a routine call for a car repair could end in such a brutal attack.

A police source told The PUNCH that the circumstances surrounding Samson’s death were still being investigated and that efforts were underway to identify those responsible.

The Lagos State Police Command also confirmed the incident.

The command’s spokesperson, SP Abimbola Adebisi, said the victim’s family had initially reported that Samson was missing after they could no longer reach him.

According to her, detectives visited his apartment after receiving the report and began efforts to trace his mobile phone and establish his movements.

The case remains under investigation.

There are, however, allegations that the killing may be connected to cult-related violence in the Ibeju-Lekki area.

A source cited by The PUNCH said suspected cultists were believed to be behind the attack. An anti-cultism advocacy platform also alleged that Samson’s killing was a retaliatory attack linked to the death of a man identified as Ola Sheu around Lakowe on September 9.

The platform claimed that a photograph allegedly showing Samson wearing a cult-associated beret had exposed his supposed affiliation and that this may have made him a target.

That claim, however, has not been established by the police as the confirmed motive for his killing.

For now, what is known is that Samson left his workshop after receiving what appeared to be a legitimate request to repair a Mercedes-Benz.

The police investigation will now have to establish who contacted him, where the vehicle was supposedly located, who took him into the bush and what happened between the time he left his workshop and his death.

The case has also raised concerns among artisans and other service providers who routinely travel to unfamiliar locations to attend to customers.

For mechanics, electricians, technicians and other mobile workers, going to a customer’s location is part of doing business. In Samson’s case, according to the available accounts, that ordinary part of his work allegedly became the trap that cost him his life.