MAY 5, 2013 was Onyinyechi Orakwuelum’s 18th birthday.The
day she became an adult and the day she allegedly stabbed to death 19-years-old
Akinwale Ayobami, who she said wanted to rape her.Onyinye, who is currently
being held at the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Iyaganku,
Ibadan, pending investigation, narrated her story to Tribune and she said:
I am from Nkwele
Ogidi in Anambra. I finished from Saint Gabriel Commercial Secondary School,
Mokola, Ibadan, in 2011. The deceased (Ayobami) was my mate in secondary
school, as well as my friend Funmbi.My parents moved to our personal house at
Ologuneru community in Ibadan, so I lost contact with my friends. One day, my
mother came home and told me that she saw my friend, Funmbi, and that they had
also moved to Ologuneru. I was happy and we reunited. She later gained
admission into a university. In April this year, she came to me and asked if I
remembered Ayobami, who was popularly called Ewizzy. She said they chatted on
facebook and that he told her that he was also living at Ologuneru, and had
asked her to meet him at a junction so that she could know his place.I told her
that I could not recollect the name so she went alone.
The next time she
wanted to go there, she asked me to follow her. I initially refused, but she
persuaded me. We got there and saw him. His girlfriend was also there, lying on
a couch. We relived our secondary school days and he later requested for my
number since we were living in the same area. I gave him.We left and not too
long after, he called me, saying that he had been calling Funmbi’s number but
it was switched off. He said he wanted to know if I had got home. Funmbi was
beside me then so she also answered because her phone battery had gone flat by then.Since
then, I did not hear from him, though there was a day I missed his call, but I
could not call him back as I had no credit on my phone.
On my birthday on May
5, I went to help a lady in our neighbourhood after coming back from church.
When I checked my phone later, I saw Ayobami’s call among others that I had
missed. I called him back and while chatting, I told him that day was my
birthday. He congratulated me and said it was worth celebrating. I told him I
was only marking it.He asked where I was and I said Ologuneru, he then asked me
to join him at Ologuneru junction. I went there at about 7p.m. and I saw him
come out of a beer parlour. I didn’t know that he was already drunk. On getting
to his apartment, he took me through the back door. When I asked why, he said
the lock on the front door was bad so he locked it with a padlock.I told him I
preferred to sit outside because it was pitch dark inside. He opened the front
door and I went in. We put on torchlights.I made a call to a friend while he
was busy on his laptop. Later, he made a call to his mother. We started
discussing about school days again and he then went to the kitchen and offered
me water. I told him I was o.k. and he went into the kitchen again.
It was at that point that Onyinyechi said the story changed.
She narrated further:
“He came back and
locked the front door with a padlock. I asked him why he did that but he just sat
beside me and said he wanted to date me. I even thought he was joking, and I
replied that ‘is that what we came here to do?’ but he told me he was very
serious. As he moved closer, I perceived a strong smell of alcohol, then I knew
he was drunk.“I asked again: ‘AY, are you drunk?’ he replied that he was not
drunk, saying he meant what he said. I told him I could not date him and he
replied that if I could not date him, then he must have sex with me before I
leave. I told him to open the door for me to leave but he said I was not going
anywhere. I started pleading but he did not yield.“The next thing he did was to
pull off his trousers and I knew I was in trouble because I could see he was
aroused. He told me I could see that he was in mood for sex and that he must
have his way.
I opened the sliding
window screaming ‘somebody, please help me!, Somebody, please, save me!’. He
came there, slapped me, drew me back and locked the window. I started running
round the sitting room and he was pursuing me.“He went to the kitchen and
brought a knife, warning me not to waste his time. He threatened to do
something nasty to me if I did not yield to him after counting from one to 10.
He had said before that he loved his mother so I begged him in the name of his
mother, he did not yield ground. I begged him in the name of God but he said he
left God a long time ago and that he was serving Ogun. He showed me the picture
of a bird hanged on the wall and said that was the symbol of his god.
I also told him I was
having my menses but he said I should allow him to do what he wanted to do,
saying that if his friends should meet me in the house, they would take their
turns with me.He lit a cigarette and started smoking. He started his countdown
but I knelt and was pleading. As he got to eight, I screamed the more but he
rushed at me and started struggling with me to remove the bum shorts I was
wearing underneath my long dress. In the process, he dropped the knife, and at
that moment of intense fear, I picked the knife and waved it at him in the
darkness. The next thing I heard was Yee! O ti gun mi (Oh! You have stabbed
me).
I stood up,
shivering. I searched for my phone because the entire place was in topsy-turvy.
Throughout the struggling, no one responded among his neighbours, though he had
earlier said that no one would respond to me as they regard the occupants of
his flat as ‘Dons’ who are dreaded.“I reported at home and we went to the
police station to report. By the time we got back to the house, he was dead. It
was in the morning that it was seen clearly that the knife pierced his heart.”
Graphic pic below...
Sunday Tribune gathered that the deceased’s mother had been
so distraught about his death that she had been calling for justice to be done
to her son’s killer. She was said to be separated from the boy’s father and had
remarried and given birth to other children while Ayobami was the only child
she had for the father. Police investigations also revealed that the man
Ayobami was living with in the flat was not related to him.
Reacting to the
story, the Assistant Commissioner of police in charge of the Criminal
Investigation Department, Iyaganku, ACP Dasuki Galadanchi said the matter was
still being investigated.There is no witness yet to support the suspect's
story. On the side too, dead bodies cannot talk. There was no witness on the
side to corroborate whether there was an attempted rape or not. In line with
the police strategy of the Inspector General of police which encourages
openness, transparency and accountability, we will go deeper into
investigations and get to the root of the matter. If she’s found culpable,
she’ll be charged to court accordingly. We are for justice.
Culled from Nigerian Tribune
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