The suspected killer of Christiana Idowu, a student of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, FUNAAB, has explained reasons for his act.
The suspect, 23-year-old Ayomide Adeleye, is a 300-level philosophy student of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) in Ogun State
Idowu, who was doing her Industrial Training, (IT) in Yaba College of Technology, was reportedly abducted earlier in August.
Her purported abductor had demanded a ransom of N3m, which her parents negotiated down to N350,000. But despite the payment of the ransom, the 21-year-old was killed in captivity.
However, troops of the Nigerian Army later tracked Idowu’s phone to Adeleye’s residence in the Ikorodu area of Lagos, where he was subsequently arrested.
On September 5, spokesperson of the Lagos State Police Command, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed that the army had handed the suspect to the command
According to reports, Adeleye said the deceased, who attended the same church with him, had contacted him to fix her phone while he was still in school.
The suspect stated that when he got back to Lagos, she called and he told her he was at home.
Adeleye said Idowu arrived at his house around 5pm on that fateful day and asked him to fix her phone. He disclosed that he thought about his financial problems and decided to strangle her while she was busy going through his phone.
It was after killing her that he called Idowu’s mother claiming that she was kidnapped and demanded payment of ransom.
“We were church members. I had known her for three years before the incident. She had been contacting me and I told her I would be at home at the end of the session. When I came back to Lagos, she called and I told her I was at home. She came to our house around 5pm on the day of the incident and asked me to repair her phone. She was an Industrial Training, IT, student in Yaba College of Technology. She came with a bike.
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“She had her bag and other things she used in school. So, when she arrived, I collected the phone from her, looked at it, and I discovered that the phone only had a battery problem and the screen was faulty. I just needed to put gum on the screen and change the battery. But she was not ready to change the battery, she just wanted to continue using the phone like that,” Adeleye said.
“I killed her because I had financial problems. I thought of the problems and decided to strangle her while she was busy going through my phone. I then called her mother claiming that she was kidnapped and she should pay ransom. I didn’t really pounce on her. She was preoccupied with my own phone. Then, it was drizzling, and a little noisy, so I just grabbed her, applied pressure. She started struggling. She didn’t really shout because I already suppressed her. I then squeezed her throat and she gave up. I placed her body on a seat and took her picture so that I could send it to her mother. I didn’t send it immediately, I just left her at the shop like that. That was around 5:30 pm on Monday night. I left her on the seat and went to plan how to dispose of the body.
“By 11 p.m. that same night, I started to dig her grave in a small farm behind our compound. Luckily, rain fell that day, so the ground was a little soft. I dug using a shovel. I was not able to dig deep that night. So, I postponed the digging. The body was still in the shop. By 4 am the following day, I woke up, and I continued digging. Honestly, I did not close my eyes till day break. I was just filled with thoughts about what I did. I then took the body to the shallow grave only to notice that it could not be covered well.
“I thought of what to do because I was really tired of digging. I had blisters on my hand and the shovel I used had already broken. So, I thought of chopping off her head to make it easy to bury but I did not have the courage to do that. I just had to continue digging even if the shovel broke, I continued to dig until the shallow grave could contain her. I then buried her, covered it with sand. Everything happened before 5 a.m. Then I left the scene to contact her mother and demanded ransom,” the suspect said.
He expressed remorse for his action and asked to be given a second chance.
“I don’t deserve any mercy for what I have done. At the same time, I ask God to forgive me. What I did was totally wrong and I regret it. I feel remorseful for what I have done. If there’s any way I could be given a second chance, I want to be given one but I deserve death, honestly. I have been planning to kill myself. While I was in the guard room, I tried to look for any sharp object to cut myself so that I would bleed to death,” he added.
