A Togolese cook, Sunday Adefonou Anani, arrested for allegedly killing his boss, Chief Opeyemi Bademosi, has confessed how he committed the murder.
Police quoted him as saying that he stabbed the late Bademosi, 67, the chief executive officer of Credit Switch Ltd, twice in the chest.
A statement yesterday by police spokesman Chike Oti said the 22-year-old suspect allegedly killed his master at their 3B, Onikoyi Lane, Parkview Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos home.
Recalling the incident that led to the death of the Ondo-born chief, the spokesman said the late business mogul on October 28 brought the suspect to Lagos to work as his cook.
Oti said: โThree days later, precisely on October 31, the suspect with the intention to rob the deceased, went to his room through the kitchen, to the lobby and then to the room, which was the scene of crime, when he observed that the deceasedโs wife, Ebunola, had left home for a transaction in a commercial bank in their neighbourhood.
โAccording to the suspect, when he got to the deceasedโs room and met him on the bed, he said โChief I am not here to kill youโ. The deceased asked him, โwhat do you want?โ He replied, โmoney.โ The deceased said he had no money in the house. At that juncture, the suspect said he tied him up with a cloth and put him on the floor. He said while the deceased was on the floor, he kicked him, making the knife he tucked inside his pants to fall off. He said the deceased crawled to pick the knife, but he (suspect) was faster. He struggled with him and the knife accidentally pierced the deceased. He said when he was leaving the room, the deceased took the knife to stab him, so he kicked him and he fell. He (the suspect) then took the knife and stabbed him twice in the chest.
โHe said after killing his boss, he entered his bathroom and threw away his apron already stained with blood and the kitchen knife he used to kill him. He later heard a knock on the kitchen door, sensing it must be the deceasedโs wife; he ran out of the room and exited from the sitting room.
โThe suspect said he was confronted by the guard, Nura Mamudu, who asked him where he was hurrying to and he replied that โmadam sent me on an errand.โ
โFinding himself in the street, he saw men loading cement into a truck. He assisted them and they rewarded him with a lift to Ondo. The truck driver gave him N500 as an appreciation.โ
The police said Anani allegedly killed his boss around 8:10am.
โThe deceasedโs wife, Ebunola, came to the crime scene through the sitting room after knocking several times on the kitchen door without a response from the suspect. She found her husband in a pool of blood and reported the incident to the police. The deceased, a few minutes before his death, called his wife on the phone, complaining that Anani barged in on him in his bedroom. He stabbed the deceased several times in the thoracic region (chest).
โThe scene of the crime, which is the deceasedโs bedroom, was scattered and stained with blood. The suspect stole his Samsung phone and fled to Ondo State where he was arrested on November 2. The phone was recovered from the suspect. The kitchen knife used in killing the deceased was found inside the deceasedโs toilet and the suspectโs apron was found soaked with blood at the scene of the crime,โ Oti said.
He said the suspect cried and confessed to the murder after he was confronted with evidence from the Close Circuit Television (CCTV) footage.
The suspect, Oti said, led the investigation team to the crime scene and demonstrated how he carried out the crime.
โSamples recovered from the scene have been handed over to the Forensic and DNA Department of the Ministry of Justice for examination and analysis. The autopsy report attributed the cause of the death to Bilateral Haemothorax, laceration of the lung and intercostal vessels and multiple sharp force traumas to the chest,โ he said.
Other suspects, Kofi Friday, Agbeko Ayenahin, Salisu Hussein and Nura Mamudu, who are not linked to the crime, Oti said, will be released to reliable sureties.
The police, he said, have established a prima facie case of robbery/murder against Anani.
Oti said: โIt is evident that the suspect single-handedly committed the crime by stabbing Bademosi to death with a kitchen knife with intent to steal from him. The suspect will be arraigned.
โPolice Commissioner Imohimi Edgal has directed that the casefile be duplicated and forwarded to the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) for vetting and legal advice. He said criminal investigation has gone beyond the era of rule of thumb to an era of scientific and research based investigation in the command.โ
According to Oti, Anani was given a French speaking lawyer from the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), who was with him throughout the investigation.
