Some Facts About Life And Death Of Fahim Saleh, GOKADA CEO

The murder of Fahim Saleh, CEO of Lagos motorcycle ride hailing service, Gokada was first discovered by one his siblings who raised the alarm on Tuesday, after she became concerned because she had not heard from him for a day.

His sister reportedly went to the seventh floor unit of the building he lived in to check on him and found his dismembered body in his home.

He had been cut up with an electric saw, which was lying nearby and was still plugged in. Police sources said the body parts had been sorted into different plastic bags.

Police believe they have surveillance footage of the suspect entering the building on Monday and then using the elevator.

Video reportedly shows the gloved suspect wearing a hat and mask covering his face, and carrying a bag. He waited to enter the elevator with Saleh.

‘The perp had a suitcase. He was very professional,’ one police source told the Daily News.

Sources told the New York Post that as the pair rode up to the seventh floor apartment together, Saleh appeared puzzled.

No sooner had he stepped out of the elevator – which opened directly into his home – the attack began

He fell to the floor after either likely being shot or stunned, the footage reportedly shows.

The way he was killed has led cops to believe the murder was carried out by a professional.
Police found that Saleh’s legs below the knees and his arms had been removed, with the missing body parts placed into bags.

Surprisingly, there was very little blood. The New York Times reported that some effort had been made to clear up evidence.

Fahim Saleh on a GOKADA in Lagos State / Photo credit: www.dailymail.co.uk

Fahim Saleh was born in July 1986 into a middle-class Bengali family in Saudi Arabia. Along with his two sisters – Rif Saleh and Ruby Bashir, he and his parents eventually settled in Rochester, New York.

But even as a youngster, Saleh was said to already be dreaming of earning money and found that his interest in computers could help to realise those dreams.

His current focus was on a Nigerian transport service app called Gokada – essentially an Uber for motorbikes – which was co-founded by Saleh in 2018.

The initial idea was to have people transported across Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, by motorcycle.

In its first year of operation, Gokada was said to have secured 1,000 bikes giving around 5,000 rides across the crowded city each day.

But the firm ran into difficulty in February of this year after a ban went into effect that expressly forbid motorbike taxis.

The ban came at a difficult moment for Gokada which had just raised $5.3 million in funding from Rise Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, in May 2019.

After the ban was enacted, the firm stopped bringing in money and around 800 bikers working for GOKADA were also immediately laid off.

Saleh, never one to give up, was working on new ideas and a new direction for the firm.

The company decided to attempt to pivot and become a delivery and logistics company with a new boat hailing service that would run vessels that could hold up to 24 people – but then the global pandemic struck, putting future plans on hold.

“The drivers here at Gokada, were not there to make money, they were here because they had families, they have children, they have dreams.

“They want to start businesses, they want to go to school, they have degrees already, but they couldn’t find jobs. For many, Gokada wasn’t the final place for their life,” ‘ Saleh told had Nairametrics.