Feeling ran high at Ogombo forest, Ajah, Lagos, where the decomposing body of popular Abuja businessman, Chief Hyginus Odunukwe, was recovered, following a startling revelation by the prime suspect, Daniel Bob Ibeaji, on how the businessman was lured to his death.
However, he further revealed how he conspired with three others: Arinze Igwe, 26; Solomon Cletus 30 and Israel Obigaremu, 35, to snuff life out of Odunukwe at Artican Beach Resort, in Ajah area of Lagos, on December 1, 2019.
Ibeaji who claimed to have studied Medicine and Surgery in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom, disclosed that the deceased was first hit with an axe on the head, injected with an excess dose of a lethal Injection that weakened him before he was strangled. Recall that the deceased, who was into estate development and Gold mining, was approached by the prime suspect in respect of one of his buildings he displayed for sale, in Abuja.
Late Odunukwe left his abode at ikoyi, lagos state on December 1, 2019, having informed his family that he was going to meet the supposed buyer but he never returned home. His body which was cut into pieces was recovered by operatives of the Zonal Intervention Squad, ZIS of the Zone 2 Command, last week, in a canal in Ogombo forest along Ajah road, while his 4- Runner SUV was tracked to Artican Beach Resort.
Explaining why the late businessman was murdered, Ibeaji, who was paraded by the Assistant Inspector General of Police in-charge of Zone 2, AIG Ahmed Iliyasu, at the canal where the victim’s body was recovered, said, “I killed him because I wanted to take the property worth 900 million naira. “Lust for material things made me kill him.
He added,I met him last September in
Abuja, through an advert for the sale of the property in question. Later, I
called him on the phone to inform him that I was ready to make payment and he
told me to come to Lagos. “That Sunday afternoon, when I was sure he was on his
way to Artican Beach Resort, I instructed one of my boys to bring a bag for me.
After he signed the documents of the building in question, in the garden, I
told him to come inside the hotel room so as to give him the money. “But when
he came, I started shouting on him to hand the documents over to me but he
insisted I must first pay.
At that
point, one of my colleagues brought the bag containing some cash, as Chief bent
down to check the money, I hit an axe on his head. “We dragged him to the
toilet, injected him with two doses of diazepam and he slept off”. I wanted to
use the signed document to claim the property as mine and later sell it”, he
said. “Lust for money made me do this”.
During preliminary investigation, he was discovered to have
been arrested in connection with two other similar cases. One of them was in
respect of the murder of a Commissioner in Bayelsa State, one Honorable
Depologa, whose remains were found along Abuja road. His murder as gathered,
occurred a week after his encounter with Ibeaji, at Ibeto Hotel, Abuja.