Septuagenarian, 101 Others Paraded as Minor Kills Mistress

Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City
A 77 year-old man, Osarumwese Osahon, was among the 102 suspected criminals paraded by the Edo State Police Command for alleged involvement in various crimes in the state.

This is just as a 14-year-old girl, Hannah (other name withheld), who killed her mistress, Mrs. Helen Adodo, yesterday said that she was under a spell.
The 77 years-old man claimed he was not a criminal and that he was arrested in connection with land dispute but paraded alongside criminals.

Parading the suspects, the state Commissioner of Police, Babatunde Johnson Kokumo, said the suspects were arrested for allegedly involving in armed robbery, Kidnapping, cultism, burglary and murder.
“The suspects were arrested within the state while others made incursion into the state from neighbouring states to commit crime and were arrested.

“Several of them were arrested within the state and several were arrested outside Edo State.
“Some of these criminals of course are resident criminals within Edo State and some of them actually made incursion into Edo State from neighbouring states like Kogi.

“Several of them have robbed innocent citizens and of course, their arms and ammunition recovered.
“Articles of values that were robbed from innocent citizens were equally recovered from them,” he said.

Kokumo further stated that the command had launched a war against armed robbery, kidnapping, cultists and cultism, adding that the war had yielded good result with the arrest of many cultists and other criminals.

“Many of these suspects were into cultism. You will agree with me that cultism has been a major issue that has constituted a great deal of social malady, disturbing law abiding citizens, and the issue of cultism has led to the death of several law abiding innocent citizens.

“The command has launched a war against cultists and cultism and this war of course was spare-headed by the command special anti-cultism unit.

“The war has yielded positive result and today we have several of them in our net”, he said.
He assured that the suspects would be charged to Court, calling on the people to always give information to the police in order to sustain the fight against criminal.

Addressing newsmen, Osahon, said he is not a criminal and that he was arrested on Thursday over land matter.

“My late son sold my land at Ugbor to someone unknown to me. When my other son wanted to travel abroad, I sold the land to another person at the cost oN2.5million this year but when the person that bought it from me came to develop it, the first person, a lady, who claimed she bought it from my son stopped him from developing the land that she is the owner of the land.

“When the man came to meet me to refund his money, I told him to give me time or I should give him another land in a different place but he refused. That was why I was arrested yesterday. I am not an armed robber, and I am not a cultists. I did not commit any other crime,” he said.

Meanwhile, the 14 year-old who killed her mistress, said she was under spell.

Making a confessional statement while being paraded, Hannah said on the day the incident happened, her mistress asked her to give her clothes to change because the ones she was putting on was smeared with kerosene.

She said when she was done with that, the deceased demanded for food and water to bath before she went to bed.

According to her, “There is one of her friends that usually come around and when she comes, she sends me on errand.

“She used to go to native doctor’s house. She comes at night and when she does, she passes the night in our house.

“She asked me to follow her one certain night and I refused. So when we came back, the woman I am staying with asked me to put on the light that was around 12:00am.

“She called me to give her other clothes that the one she is putting on smells because of the kerosene that poured on it. She changed into another clothes.

“So I dropped the clothes that had the kerosene on the floor. She later asked me to prepare food and boil water for her to bath.

“So before I came out, her friend has already gone to the native doctor’s house.”

“Some uncontrollable forces came upon me like breeze. So I lost senses of what I was doing.

“I left the dishes I was to wash and went straight to stand on a stone and I later went inside the room where I discovered that my mistress was still sleeping so I hit the stone on her head and she died.

“So, I scratched my head and turned around four times before I regained my sense.

“So when I saw that I have killed her, I held her and started crying in her pool of blood”, she said.

The JSS II Itohan Girls Grammar School student, who was brought from Abuja to the deceased, said the spirit warned her not to tell anyone and that if she does, she will die.

The suspect who had barely spent five months in Benin with her mistress said she has never killed anybody before and that she regretted her action.