ABEOKUTA – When 22-year-old Lagos State University (LASU) undergraduate Favour Daley-Oladele left her parents’ Mowe residence in Ogun State on December 8, there was nothing to suggest she was embarking on a journey of no return.
A few hours later, the final year Theatre Arts student ended up at Ikoyi-Ile, Osun State, some 270 kilometres away, where she was allegedly murdered for ritual purposes.
Suspected to have conspired to kill Favour are her boyfriend Owolabi Adeeko, his mother Mrs. Adeeko and a Cherubim and Serephim prophet Segun Philips.
They have all been arrested by the police.
The victim was first drugged by mother and son, before they took her to the prophet’s church.
A pestle, wielded by Owolabi, was then used to smash an already weak Favour in the head thrice.
The ‘prophet’ then proceeded to slit her throat, and opened up her body to remove the heart, tongue and other parts to perform money making rituals for the Adeekos.
The ‘prophet’ had charged N250,000 for his service.
Favour, sources said, had visited her parents that fateful weekend and was billed to return to school on the evening of Sunday, December 8 when she received telephone calls from Adeeko, her boyfriend of about two months, requesting that they should meet at an undisclosed location.
Favour told her parents that she would stop to see a friend on her way to school and would call them on returning to school to prepare for her exams.
When no phone calls came from her as she promised, the parents began to try her line.
In vain, they tried to reach her for two days.
They soon grew agitated and decided to physically visit her in school to be assured that all was well with her.
But they were shocked when they were told at the university that she had not been seen.
They were advised to report to the police immediately.
They headed to the Mowe Police Station where the process to locate her started.
The police began by tracking her phone.
A source said: “The police located her phone around Oyo and Osun States. By then, her SIM card had been removed and another card inserted in the phone.
“A C&S prophet, Segun Philips was the one using the phone. His church is located at Ikoyi Ile near Ikire, Osun State.
“So, the police from Mowe moved there on December 24; he was arrested and he confessed that Owolabi Adeeko and his mother brought Favour to be used for ritual.
“The prophet also confessed that Owolabi had been staying with him for the past 17 days and he gave information on the whereabouts of the man who the police also arrested that same day.”
Her father, Pastor Daley-Oladele, thanked the police for unraveling the mystery surrounding her disappearance.
He said “When we got to the prophet’s compound, I saw a covered well and I asked the prophet’s wife who they buried there but she said no one. My spirit kept pushing me there, not knowing that my daughter’s mutilated body was inside.
“It was at the police station that they confessed to all they did. The prophet said Owolabi used pestle to smash my daughter’s head. They dug the well beside a tree and then took her to it when they brought her.
“She was already weak and drugged and so, they dragged her there. Owolabi smashed her head about three times and the prophet used a knife to slit her throat.
“He also opened her up, removed her heart, tongue and other body parts which they used to prepare soup for Owolabi’s mother. They now pushed her remaining body into the well.
“It is painful and a very sad moment for us. She went missing on December 8 and it was that same day they killed her.
“The suspects were arrested on December 24 and they confessed to their crimes. My wife has not been herself since then. All I am appealing for is justice for my daughter. I am grateful to the police team for going all out to uncover this wickedness.”
A police source who spoke to our correspondent said the prophet confessed he charged N250,000 for the job and that he was given N210,000 as advance payment.
He also said that the prophet admitted to be engaged in spiritual jobs for fraudsters and other people in need of his services. He and his mother took the girl to the prophet’s place from a hotel in Ikoyi- Ile.
“They confessed that they wanted to be rich and that they wanted all their misfortune to be taken away.
“When we located the phone and wanted to arrest the pastor, he was the one who told us to wait that the boy who brought Favour was the owner of a car parked in his premises.
“Apparently, Owolabi had gone to a bank near the police station to withdraw money in preparation for his return to Lagos. That was where he was arrested on the same December 24. The suspects are in custody at Mowe Division.
“Owolabi admitted he drugged her at the hotel and then used a pestle to smash her head at the well. The prophet also confessed he slit her throat, removed some of her body parts which he used to cook ritual stew (aseje) which they ate to cleanse their misfortune,” he said.
Contacted, police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi, confirmed the incident.
He said that the suspects would be paraded by Commissioner Kenneth Ebrimson soon.
“It is true that the suspects are in custody. We will issue a statement on this on Sunday. It is not true that the police are planning to release them. How can we release people who confessed to such gruesome murder? They will be transferred to the homicide unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID) and the Commissioner of Police Kenneth Ebrimson has said he would parade them himself.
“We are wrapping up the last leg of the investigation and we assure the public that no one involved in this crime will go unpunished,” he said. (The Nation)
