MURDER: HOW WE FOUND ATAGA'S PERSONAL ITEMS IN CHIDINMA'S HOUSE - POLICE WITNESS NARRATES

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By Aishat Momoh. O.

The Lagos High Court sitting at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), resumed sitting on the murder trial of Chidinma Ojukwu, the 300-level University of Lagos undergraduate that was alleged to have murdered Super TV CEO, Micheal Usifo Ataga; on Tuesday.

Chidinma and her sister, Chioma Egbuchu and a third person, Adedapo Quadri are facing a nine-count charge bordering on murder, forgery, conspiracy and stealing.

As the trial continued, the court listened to the testimony of a prosecuting witness, Olusegun Bamidele, a police officer, who investigated and also, recorded the confessional statement of Chidinma when she was first arrested.

DSP Bamidele, showed the court some pictures and video that were taken by his team when they visited the scene of the murder and also the CCTV footage that was gotten from the Anglo villa where the deceased and defendant visited before his death.

The video showed how the shortlet they lodged looked like. The room had a bed, a cushion chair, a mini kitchen , two stools which one was broken, a wardrobe, and curtain.

The video recording of the room also showed the lifeless body of a man that the witness identified as Usifo Ataga. He was wearing a boxer-shorts and his chest and stomach was covered with a white cloth.

Meanwhile, the picture evidence showed some supplements inside Ataga bag, his blood on the ground, broken cabinet, a stool and a broken door.

Other items visible in the picture are food supplements, his bag, clothes, pain killer and three bottles of wine. Also, the bed sheet, a rope, the wall and the pillow were stained with the deceased’s blood.

He further narrated how the interaction he had with Chidinma went, how it was recorded by his colleague with a phone, which was later burnt into a disc as Exhibit P-24, before he identified some items that were recovered during a search at her house after her arrest.

According to the police officer, Chidinma had denied ever knowing Ataga, until she was shown a CCTV footage where she was with the deceased going in and coming out of Anglo Villa on 13th of June, 2021 before he was murdered.

He said. “We, meaning myself, other colleagues and two of the deceased’s friends went to Anglo Villa, got a copy of the CCTV footage, took it to the office and burnt it into a disc.”

“When I had an interaction with the first defendant, she initially denied knowing the deceased and when she introduced herself, it was her real name that she gave. We then showed the CCTV footage of herself and the deceased at Anglo Villa.”

“Then, I reminded her that when she booked the facility at No 19 Adewale Oshin street, she introduced herself as Jewel, and I also, reminded her of the phone conversation she had with the owner of the facility, Nkechi Mogbo. I told her that the phone number was a foreign number while questioning her on how she got the number.”

“She said it was an internet generated number. I recollect that I asked her of Ataga’s whereabouts. At first, she said she doesn’t know; then, I told her that he was dead and I said that she killed him.”

She denied but said she stabbed him in the neck region. I asked her why? She came up with a narrative of how Ataga tried to rape her, smoking of ‘loud’, and that she added excess quantity of Rophynol into the deceased’s drink.”

“I also recollect that she said that she couldn’t take any more of his sexual advances and that made them stay away from each other while adding that he stayed on the chair while she stayed on the bed. She also said that because of the separation, she thought that he had forgotten about sexual urge but then he came back and she pushed him away which led to the deceased hitting his head on the round stool.”

He continued “The deceased eventually got up, having sustained injury on his head, knee and one of his legs, held her by the neck and while she was struggling, she picked one kitchen knife which she used in stabbing the deceased on the neck.”

“She further said that the deceased fell down and because of his physique, she felt if he managed to get up, he might assault her the more. It was on this basis that she used the recovered blue rope to tie his two hands together and used the same kitchen knife to stab him on his ribs and stomach/abdomen.”

“Thereafter, she changed her clothes, packaged the knife in a nylon bag, along with the deceased’s MacBook Laptop, iPhone 8 pro max, iPhone 11 and 12 pro max before leaving the scene of the incident.”

While DSP Bamidele gave his testimony, the three defendants were all present in court.

However, the court played another video where Chidinma was narrating what transpired between her and the deceased on the day of the incident, at the State CID office in Panti.

In the video, Chidinma spoke of how she stabbed the deceased and escaped from the scene claiming that she was scared. She added that she did that because, Ataga was aggressive probably because of the excess drugs he took.

“I added excess dose of drugs inside his drink and it made him high. We drank, smoke, watched movies and had sex. We ran out of drugs and I made another order which we got the next day.”

She added that, “Because of the drugs we took, we were already high, and then he came back for more sex. I told him that i was tired but he became aggressive, then i pushed him away.”

“At the time, he was already wounded. As he stood up, we began to struggle, I took the kitchen knife, stabbed him on the neck and he fell.”

She continued saying that, “for the fear that he was going to attack me again if he stood up, I stabbed him again on his ribs and stomach before tying his hand with a handkerchief. I took my bag, changed my clothes, and left. When I was leaving, I also left with the handkerchief and the knife.”

She also added in the video that nobody assisted her when she was carrying out the act.

“I did it alone and I didn’t call for help because I was scared and we were both fighting. That was why I ran away.”

Meanwhile, when the witness identified the items that was recovered from Chidinma’s house, her counsel, C. C Ezebube, objected to the tendering of those items before the court while mentioning that the custody of those items were not stated before the court.

According to him, they could have been tampered with or even picked from anywhere before it was tendered in court. He added that, there was no certificate as to its originality.

“Those items can be reproduced and the issue of relevance of some of these items is also not established. They would have chosen what they feel is relevant during the course of the investigation and in the course of doing that, they could have tampered with any of the items.” He said.

Justice Yetunde Adesanya, however, dismissed the counsel’s opposition. In her ruling, she said that the prosecution had previously tendered an evidence, P-15 before the court which is a search warrant on the basis of which the first defendant’s apartment was searched.

Thereafter, the court admitted the pictures, videos, documents and other recovered items as Exhibit P-25, P-26, P-27, P-28a&b, and P-29 respectively.

The court adjourned the case to Wednesday, October 12, 2022 for continuation of trial.