The killer of 21 years old, 300-level student of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Christianah Idowu, Ayomide Adeleye has revealed why he killed her.
Idowu was reported by her family members to have gone missing on August 19 after setting out to the Yaba area of Lagos, where she does her IT.
The killer, Ayomide, a 200-level student of Philosophy at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, had contacted her family members, demanding N1.5m. However, her family could only raise N350,000 and paid the sum on August 22.
He was subsequently arrested after the military tracked the suspect to his house and found Idowu’s phone with him.
On September 5, spokesperson of the Lagos State Police Command, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed that the army had handed the suspect to the command.
Speaking about the murder, Adeleye said he strangled the deceased after she arrived at his house to fix her phone.
According to Adeleye, Idowu had contacted him while he was in school to fix her phone.
The suspect stated that when he got back to Lagos, she called and he told her he was at home.
He disclosed that he thought about his financial problems and decided to kill her so he could make money.
He added that he called Idowu’s mother after killing her, claiming that she was kidnapped and demanded payment of ransom.
He said, “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.
“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.”
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.