It's worth noting that there was a sudden & pretty draconian regulation passed early this year that gutted Gokada's primary business (ridesharing on motorbikes). He was very passionate in his disagreement with the government's decision. The company pivoted pretty neatly (in my opinion) to last-mile deliveries instead - the pandemic certainly helped drive demand - but currently there's morbid speculation that potential financial struggles on Gokada's part might have been a factor in his murder. There's also the possibility of someone in power being displeased at how vocal he was about the regulation.
What is there to gain financially from killing him, if his previous business was gutted by regulatory changes?
The killer was evidently belonging to a highly capable skillset, and I'm extrapolating that they very nearly got away with his body in tow, and nobody would've been the wiser.
Could they not have kidnapped him and ransomed the company? If there's financial qualms on the board, I just don't understand why they'd just kill him then. If they went to deliveries, does that mean other delivery couriers are to be scrutinized?
Maybe he was involved with something dirty?
If it was a state agent of Nigeria that is responsible, idk, that'd be geopolitical suicide, putting hits out on private entrepreneurs across national borders...
Of course, had they gotten away, it may have seemed as though he just vanished, which I suppose is the ideal scenario for a state-sanctioned killing.
Well, the idea is less financial gain and more punishment/retribution. You don't disappear/kill people in such a manner unless you want to send a message of some sort.
It's possible that he might have taken an investment from someone that does not take failure/underdelivery as an answer. Or that Gokada's continued existence pissed off someone that intended the company to go under. It could also possibly be much more personal than that - there are many people who are wealthy enough to order such a hit with relative impunity (as long as they remain in Nigeria - our justice system and infrastructure is frankly not the greatest). It could also have nothing to do with Nigeria at all; he had business ventures and personal affairs elsewhere.
It's all speculation at this point and I just hope whatever it is doesn't crush the company. Gokada employs a thousand riders but beyond that it's helped so many small businesses grow and thrive especially during this period; there's a huge informal vendor culture in Lagos that's enabled by companies like this.
My intention is not to bad mouth Nigeria - I did, quite literally, say that it's entirely speculation and that the case might very well have nothing whatsoever to do with the country (and even if it involves Gokada, the aggrieved party is not necessarily Nigerian).
Regarding infrastructure, my point is that it's far easier for someone to disappear from the eye of law enforcement here than in many other countries.
Please check global number of missing people and kidnapping cases, use it to rightly place your country. That you have weak institutions don't mean that your country is world theater of crime.
> if his previous business was gutted by regulatory changes?
There are some people you just don't want to owe money to. I'm not speculating on if that was the case here, just that in the US, that sort of thing is the realm of movies. Elsewhere in the world (and also parts of the US) that still the reality of borrowing large sums of money.
Given the local environment they operate in I wonder if someone was on the take for them to operate originally. Maybe the regulation changes cause Gokada to not want to pay but that wasn't copacetic with the demands of the "shaker"?
As you pointed out, business in these countries isn't clean and clear as it is in most countries HN'ers live in.
I saw crazy shakedowns in Northern Africa when I briefly lived there. I wouldn't doubt the same to be seen in other countries.
Saudi Arabia carried out an extrajudicial killing in a small, neighboring state. This was carried out in the US. And for all intents and purposes could be considered an act of war against a state that has an unlimited war chest.
Not to mention and I guess a lot of people dont know this but Turkey was one of the main allies of the USA not too long ago for quite a while at that. It was quite a strategic alliance too. Just look at Turkeys neighboring countries sometime.
Turkey leadership may well be sympathetic to the Saudis to some extent. Freedom of press doesn't exactly seem like their biggest concern, and they have an authoritarian Muslim ruler.
I would argue that in the ME everyone is and is not in cold war with everyone else, at any given time. Erdogan and the Saudis, for example, both helped ISIS... until they didn't.
There isn't a fundamental ideological divide, everyone is just jockeying for a few more square-meters of this or that.
They might be, no doubt. I was mainly objecting (unrelated to the article) to the 'smallness' of the neighboring state and to the fact that if something could be considered an act of war doesn't mean it will be one. Bottomless oil well is a good counter to an unlimited war chest.
Turkey has gone downhill in the last five years due to the actions of Turkish leadership.
I no longer see them returning to the path of democracy sadly.
The Trump administration are saints in comparison.
A superpower doesn't go to war over an isolated assassination of (with all due respect to the victim and his family) some random rich kid. Casus belli is invoked only where there was a pre-existing ambition. I don't think the US have any ambition to take over Saudi Arabia, when they couldn't even run Iraq.
I look at one possibility as he raised/borrowed money from the wrong people and then when things went pear shaped, he couldn't get them their promised profit, got chopped up to set an example.
> What is there to gain financially from killing him, if his previous business was gutted by regulatory changes?
Devil's devil's advocate - the motivation for the killing doesn't need to be "rational" or make sense from our perspective. It could be pathological, it could be revenge, who knows?
Are you inferring "ninja outfit" from the article description? Because it vaguely mentions a black suit and face mask. And I'm not entirely sure "face mask" doesn't just mean a now-standard-in-a-pandemic mask type.
In some parts of the world, for some people, it was enough to want to kill him to actually do it. And in such a brutal way.
It doesn't have to be that complicated.
"The killer was evidently belonging to a highly capable skillset," - no, it's not skill, it's just the diabolical will to actually do such a thing. Depending on circumstances, there can be a lack of evidence ... and that's that.
> What is there to gain financially from killing him, if his previous business was gutted by regulatory changes?
It may be as simple as being the member of the board another member is displeased with. Not suggesting that, just saying sometimes your very existence is a liability to others.
> If it was a state agent of Nigeria that is responsible, idk, that'd be geopolitical suicide, putting hits out on private entrepreneurs across national borders
I think he might if he thought he could get himself out of it someway. Look at how callous the administration has been about allowing covid to go wild without even blinking until lately. Tens of thousands of people dead for no reason, soon to be hundreds of thousands. It's a nightmare.
I know television and film popularize this kind of thing, but how often are people actually murdered and dismembered for financial reasons??? Same question around murder-for-hire generally, as well as specifically "someone in power" being so upset as to murder the man brutally?
Could have just as easily been a date, a hookup, a serial killer, someone perturbed at wealth inequality and better living standards.
Just as much as this financial or business hitman speculation.
Its all happened in NYC. Chopped up into bags sounds like cartel or organized, it happened to OneCoin promoters in Mexico this month too. But we dont know yet for this case.
>Could have just as easily been a date, a hookup, a serial killer, someone perturbed at wealth inequality and better living standards.
The CCTV footage would seem to make those first two somewhat less likely:
"One of the law enforcement officials said a surveillance camera had captured video of Mr. Saleh in the building’s elevator with another person who was wearing a black suit and black mask."
"On the video, the elevator door opens and Mr. Saleh goes into the apartment, the official said. The masked person follows directly behind him, and the two immediately start to struggle, the official said."
It just says an "electric saw". Probably a reciprocating saw or something. You'd get even more attention from neighbors (who apparently heard a violent altercation, and didn't call police-- instead calling his sister??) using a chain saw.
The part about not calling the police is not that surprising. You call the NYPD if you would like everyone in the area shot and drugs and guns planted on the bodies. Otherwise, they're not very useful.
Dismembering someone is something that most people do not have the fortitude for and goes way beyond a crime of passion. It is not just as likely to have been a "date, hookup or somone perturbed at inequality". Serial killer, maybe, however they are much rarer than some sort of cartel/organized outfit.
