By Evelyn Usman
The shrill shout for help rented the
quiet atmosphere in Ogombo village, Lekki, Eti-Osa Local Government Area of
Lagos State, at the early hours of Tuesday, last week. Residents who were
jolted from sleep felt reluctant at first to come out, apparently thinking it
was a robbery attack.
When a man later discovered to be
the landlord of the building where the shout emanated from summoned courage to
go see what the problem was, he was reportedly taken aback, on seeing a young
man in the pool of his blood, with a kitchen knife by the side of his ribs.
The dying man, Mr. Edet Ebong, a
member of staff of the Akwa Ibom State Transport Company, was reportedly rushed
to a hospital within the vicinity by policemen from Ogombo Division who were
alerted by the landlord identified as Baba Dada. Unfortunately, he was
reportedly rejected. Thereafter, he was rushed to the Marina General Hospital
where doctors battled in vain to save his life.
As you read this piece, Ebong is
lying stone dead at the hospital morgue, no thanks to his lover of 18 months.
At the moment, his alleged killer, Miss Blessing Edet, is cooling her heels at
the State Criminal and Investigations Department (SCIID), Yaba.
Crime Guard investigation revealed that the deceased moved into his
girlfriend’s apartment six months ago after he was ejected from his. The
relationship which had lasted for a year and six months was at its final stage
of being consummated into marriage when the unexpected occurred. It was learned
that the deceased returned home at about 11pm, without the slightest inkling
that it would be his last night on earth.
A version of the account at Crime
Guard’s disposal reveals that the quarrel between the love birds was as
a result of Blessing’s refusal to add canned sardines in the noodles her
live-in over asked her to prepare for him.
Account of eyewitnesses
A resident who claimed to have
witnessed the quarrel said: “I was waiting outside for my boyfriend who was yet
to come home when I saw Edet walk in. Thereafter, I overheard Blessing
saying she could not go out that night to buy canned sardines to prepare the
noodles.
At about an hour and thirty minutes
later, my boyfriend arrived and as we were going into our apartment, I heard
them shouting at the top of their voices, with Blessing threatening to stab
Edet with a knife if he laid his hands on her. She apparently made good her
threat soon after that.”
Another resident who was accosted by
this reporter claimed she never knew the suspect as Blessing. Speaking
sarcastically, the resident who simply gave her name as Funmi said: “When she
moved in here four months ago, she said her name was Amaka, an Ibo lady. But we
later discovered she was a commercial sex worker.
Later, she started seeing the man (deceased)
regularly and before we knew it, he had moved in with her. Three months ago,
they had a quarrel, in the course of which Blessing flung her boyfriends cloths
out and ordered him to leave her apartment. But we later saw him coming back
again.
Had he remained where he went, this
would not have happened. We discovered that she tried to manage the situation
herself. Had she raised the alarm early, her boyfriend would not have died. He
died as a result of so much loss of blood”, Funmi said.
Sex, cause of fight
In an encounter with the Akwa-Ibom
State-born suspect, she was full of remorse, finding it difficult to accept she
actually killed her lover. In an emotion-laden tone, she said: “I never
meant to kill him. Of all the men I have come across, he appealed most to me.
He came home that night drunk and requested that I prepared noodles for him.
After eating and we laid down to sleep, he started making advances for sex.
I politely told him that I was
tired. At a point, he wanted to have it by force but I stopped the move. He
flared up and started beating me. He said he was free to have me any time he
wanted because we were going to get married. Unable to control his emotion, he
broke the standing mirror and used one of the broken pieces to stab me in the
eye.
“At that point, I rushed into the
kitchen and brought the knife I used to slice onion for the noodles. I only
wanted to threaten him with it. But before I knew it, I mistakenly stabbed him
in the stomach by the side of his left ribs. “Honestly, I did not know the
knife pierced into his stomach because he kept chasing me around. He went under
the bed and brought out a cutlass, threatening to cut off my neck.
My younger brother who lives with me
did all he could to stop him. When he discovered he couldn’t, he rushed out and
started calling for help. It was at this point I noticed that my lover was
getting weak and fell down. On closer look, I discovered he was bleeding
profusely. When my landlord came, he called in policemen from Ogombo Division.”
At this point, she stopped talking
and held her head with her two hands and started pulling her hairs. Thereafter,
she tilted back and forth and burst into tears. Asked why she was crying, she
said amid tears, “I have neither a mother nor a father to cry to at the moment.
He filled that vacuum. He promised
me while the going was good that our children would not be orphaned. I prayed
like never before for his survival while he was in the hospital. The worst has
happened and I am crying because I don’t know where I am going from here. I
swear I stabbed him mistakenly,” she stressed, with an expression of guilt.
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