TROUBLE IN FAMILY: Wife paid N80,000 for rival’s assassination – Police

                             

I engineered murder plot   – Night guard

Did a housewife hire an assassin to kill her rival? Or did the family night guard try to assassinate his master’s wife? These are the knotty questions the police in Ibadan, Oyo State capital are attempting to answer after a suspected hired assassin, Ikechukwu Christopher, was arrested.

The suspect was said to be on his way from Enugu to Ibadan to carry out the assassination when he ran into the police. A locally-made single barrel gun and a woman’s photograph found on him gave him away. He was taken into custody.

Ikechukwu named one Adenola Adeniyi, a former timber contractor, based in Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, as his sponsor. The police went after Adeniyi who, in turn, named one Arowolo Lateef as the person who gave out the assassination job. Assassination fee was put at N80,000.

The police alleged that a woman, identified as Mrs. Funke Abidoye, contracted Lateef, the family nightguard, now apprehended, to assassinate the husband’s junior wife, Ololade.

But the nightguard denied the claim, saying he was the mastermind of the murder plot to avenge the ordeal of the first wife, Funke, in the hands of Ololade.

Meanwhile, Funke is said to be on the run.

Oyo State Police Commissioner, Mr. Mohammed Indabawa, narrating the story, said Ikechukwu, the suspected hired assassin, confessed that he was contracted by Adeniyi and Lateef to kill Ololade, “Based on his confession, the said Adenola was arrested and he too corroborated the statement made by Ikechukwu and added that he was hired by Arowolo at the rate of N80,000”, Indabawa said.

…The suspects

He continued: “Investigation revealed that Arowolo hired them at the rate of N80,000. After a diligent investigation, the said Arowolo too was arrested and he confessed that one Funke, the first wife to one Muyiwa Abidoye, hired him to kill the younger wife. He explained further that he, as the husband’s night guard, was contracted by the first wife to look for hired assassins that would kill the younger wife.

“Items recovered from the three suspects are one locally made single barrel, one dane gun, eight live cartridges, one expended cartridge, one dismantled locally made gun, two cutlasses, eight handsets, one nylon containing criminal charms, photographs of Mrs. Ololade Abidoye and her husband, Muyiwa Abidoye found on the prime suspect, Ikechukwu. Meanwhile, the second wife who was said to have contracted the arrested suspects to kill her colleague has absconded from her matrimonial home. Efforts are on top gear to prosecute the arrested suspects”.

But, Arowolo denied being contracted by the first wife as alleged by the police, stressing that he just wanted to kill the younger wife in annoyance and to avenge the ordeal the first wife suffered because of her younger wife.

Ikechukwu confessed that his boss in Enugu gave him the contract to carry out the assassination. “But, when I was going, the police stopped me and found the pistol I was carrying. I was arrested and taken into custody”.

When asked why he was the person his boss in Enugu instructed to commit the crime if he had not done anything like that before, he answered that he learnt the act of shooting through hunting game and he had never been involved in killing anybody.

Adeniyi said he was in Ago Iwoye as a timber contractor when the business went under and Arowolo offered to help.

“He gave me a motorcycle to work and he did not collect any money from me. After sometime, he told me a woman was owing him N20million and for three years, she had been avoiding him. I asked him the business he transacted with the woman but he told me to help him look for hired assassin to kill the woman. After sometime, he started to threaten me. I later got in touch with one man who now linked me with a man at Enugu”.