The
inch-long scar on the neck of 53-year-old Mrs. Christiana Ashinwo, is one of
the physical reminders of the horror of Sunday, April 24, 2016.
She
sat on a chair quietly in the sitting room of a house in Agbado area of Lagos,
which she built with the sweat and suffering of many years as a single mother
and plank vendor. Her head was bowed when our correspondent went to meet her.
But
when Mrs Ashinwo looked up, her eyes were glazed with a faraway look that would
easily giveaway the fact that she could have witnessed trauma, great trauma
that she obviously had yet to recover from.
Who
would blame her? Watching her daughter killed before her presence, is enough to
give her chills every moment for the rest of her life. The horrific incident
she witnessed and survived few months ago in Kwara State remains so fresh on
her mind.
Our
correspondent had reported on April 30 how Mrs. Ashinwo and her daughter,
30-year-old Oluwatosin Ashinwo, an employee of MTN in Ilorin, Kwara State were
attacked by a knife-wielding obsessed suitor of the young lady, 45-year-old
David Ogundele.
Mrs.
Ashinwo survived the attack, her daughter didn’t.
The
older woman’s injuries were no less extensive, as she spent many days in the
emergency unit of a hospital in Ilorin as doctors battled to save her life. She
would later spend another two months in the intensive care unit of the
hospital.
Our
correspondent paid her a visit in Lagos, days after she was discharged and
brought back home.
With
a very raspy voice and intermittent cough that came out with each word, one
would conclude that all was still not well with the woman, who was left for
dead in the pool of her own blood in Ilorin that fateful day.
For
her, the agony she feels with each morsel of food and gulp of liquid passing
through her knife-damaged throat was nothing compared to the daily torment of
thinking about how she lost her first child, breadwinner, and daughter.
“I
knelt down to beg my daughter’s killer as he held the knife that later took my
daughter’s life. I thought kneeling would pacify him,” she said.
The
story Mrs. Ashinwo told was one of agony, climaxing at the moment she laid in a
pool of her own blood and tried with every ounce of her waning strength to
crawl to where her daughter laid lifeless.
“I
was dead; I don’t know why God brought me back. But I am sure I was dead that
day. I tried to crawl and touch my daughter but my strength failed. I could see
she was not breathing. There was blood everywhere; mine and my daughter’s,” she
said.
According
to her, the day of the attack was the first time he would meet the killer,
Ogundele.
Mrs.
Ashinwo said, “The first time we spoke, he called me and introduced himself as
Engineer David. He told me he was my daughter’s friend and I should help him to
appeal to my daughter to marry him.
“I
was surprised but I told him that my daughter was a 30-year-old woman. She was
free to make her own decision about who to marry.
“He
called again some weeks later and said he and my daughter had settled the
issue.
“The
next time, he called, he was very angry. He said he had never been humiliated
the way my daughter humiliated him. It was few days after my daughter’s
birthday. He said he organised a birthday party for her and invited his friends
and even bought a car as gift but she did not honour the invitation.
“I
did not know what to say. My daughter already had a car and already has someone
else she wanted to marry. I told him not to be annoyed and forget about the
issue since my daughter had made up her mind.
“Prior
to April 30, I started having some bad dreams about my daughter and became
really concerned. I decided that it was time to go and check on her to know how
she was doing.
“On
my way to Ilorin, the man (Ogundele) called again and said as soon as I get to
Ilorin, he would come and pick me at the park. I said nothing. But since I did
not even know him I went straight to my daughter’s place without calling him.
“When
I met my daughter, she took me to a woman, who seemed to be her confidante. We
ate and the woman told me that my daughter had a fight with one man called
Engineer David that day and the man threatened to kill her.
“I
did not waste time; I stood up and told her I must report to the police. But my
daughter told me to let the matter go. She said I was just making a big issue out
of a small matter.
“She
said that was why she did not like telling me some things some times. I let the
matter go because I did not want to be like an overzealous mother.”
But
that was one decision that would haunt Mrs. Ashinwo every second of every day.
The
following day, Sunday April 30, without any hint about the danger that lurked
in the shadow, she and her daughter had just got home from somewhere that day.
As they entered Oluwatosin’s flat, Ogundele, who was said to be have been
hiding around the flat, cornered them in the flat.
Mrs.
Ashinwo said, “He entered and locked the door behind him and put the key in his
pocket. I had just finished bathing when my daughter called out to me that he
was in the flat. I quickly dressed and prepared to meet the man that had been
disturbing me so much with calls. When I saw him, I said ‘Good day, pleased to
meet you’ and he replied that, ‘there is nothing good about today.’
“As
soon as I saw him, I sighted the knife he was holding. I asked him what the
problem was and he kept quiet. I did not understand what was happening. He was
saying so many things I did not understand. I asked him if my daughter owed him
anything. I promised to pay back everything. He said she did not owe him
anything. He was just angry.
“I
told him that even if they offended each other, it should not be that bad that
it would require the use of a knife. I told them they could still be friends.
When I realised he had no intension of dropping the knife, I went down on my
knees. I was begging him to drop the knife. Then, he came to where I knelt and
carried me up.
“Just
when I thought the issue would end, he rushed at Tosin and held her down on the
bed. He started stabbing her furiously. As my daughter screamed, I rushed at
him. I could not just stand and he stared stabbing me too over the body.”
By
the time the attack was over, Mrs. Ashinwo had been stabbed at least 10 times
in her torso, with the knife going through her throat in the
As
all became quiet in the room where the dying women lay, Ogundele, dropped his
weapon, the bloody knife and locked his victims in the room, Saturday PUNCH learnt.
Minutes
went by as Mrs. Ashinwo tried to call out to her daughter who was bleeding from
every parts of the body.
She
said she was so weak she could not even call out to her daughter who had become
lifeless at that point.
Lucky
for her, she heard someone in a kitchen behind her daughter’s window. The woman
said she used the last ounce of her strength to call the person, who later
raised the alarm.
By
the time the door was broken down, it was too late for Oluwatosin. She was
pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
As
Mrs. Ashinwo told this story, there was no doubt it was with tremendous agony
as she relived the gory details.
Saturday PUNCH had earlier reported that Ogundele was
arrested in Osun on Saturday, May 14, after the police tracked him down with
undercover agents.
But
Mrs. Ashinwo said the police have not even contacted her to give evidence. She
said she could not understand why Ogundele has not been charged to court.
The
spokesperson for the Kwara State Police Command, Mr. Ajayi Okasanmi, said he
did not have information about the prosecution of the suspect when our
correspondent called him.
He
said he would call back to give update about the status of the case but had yet
to do so as of the time of filing this report.
Source: The Punch
Tags
Society