Detectives from the homicide department of the Delta
State Police Command are now investigating the gruesome murder of a
27-year old graduate, Miss Ifeanyi Uti, who was allegedly killed by her
lover, one Valentine Ala, who is now on the run.
The suspect allegedly lured his lover from her family house in
Asaba, Delta State, to far away Minna, the Niger State capital, where
he allegedly murdered her in a hotel room.
Although, a case of ritual killing was suspected on account of the
mutilation of one of the eyes, autopsy reports, however, indicated that
no part of the body was removed.
The incident took place on January 28 but the family did not get to
know until February 6, when the alleged murderer confessed through a
text message that he killed her.
Ifeanyi was buried last month, the tears of her mother, Mrs. Patience
Uti, have not ceased to flow, as she has been finding the loss of the
last of her four children, unbearable. In great grief, she pleads with
security operatives to smoke out Valentine from his hiding place.
Late Ifeanyi, a fresh graduate of Chemistry from Ambrose Ali
University, Ekpoma, Edo State, was said to have met Valentine in July
last year and a romantic relationship blossomed between them. But it was
relationship built on lies, and it appeared Ify, as she was fondly
called by her siblings, was too naive to read between the lines until
the unexpected happened.
Sunday Sun learnt that her family members had warned her to
quit the relationship because of Valentine’s suspicious character but he
succeeded in bamboozling and regaling her with tales of his undying
love for her.
He was said to have told Ify that he was a gallant officer of the
Department of State Service (DSS), who had burst several criminal
syndicates particularly those engaged in kidnapping in Delta State. To
convince his unsuspecting lover, Valentine acted a scene where he called
while pretending to be on the trail of kidnappers who abducted a woman
in Warri.
Although, Ifeanyi’s family demonstrated cold feet towards him, he
never relented as he continued to plot how to elope with the girl, to
carry out his evil intention.
His first failed plot, was when he wanted to take her to Port
Harcourt where he claimed that his father had secured a plum job for him
in an oil company on the ground that he was simply fed up with the
security job.
But the family resisted, and he later left Asaba in November last
year and never came back till January, this year. While he was away,
according to Ifeanyi’s elder sister, Awele, he was always in contact
with the deceased, apparently to keep the flames of love burning while
he perfected his plot.
Continuing the tale Awele told Sunday Sun: “On January 11,
Valentine called me and said he was coming to our house. We know him; he
is not a stranger to us because he resided at the back of our street.
“He said that he had been trying to reach my sister on the phone, but
her number was not connecting. I told him that I had gone to work and
suggested that he should try and call my mum’s number.
“When I came back that night, my family told me that my sister had
gone to Ekpoma. I told them that Valentine had told me that both of them
would be leaving for Ekpoma that morning. I continued to talk on the
phone with my sister. Two days after, she called and said she needed
money and recharge cards. We sent her money, and my mother also sent her
a recharge card.”
On January 26, Ifeanyi put a call through to her family, but which
was not clear as she told her family that the network was poor where she
was at the time, and promised to call again when the network improved,
and implored her relatives not to panic, assuring them that everything
was in order.
That was the last time her family heard from her as several calls to
her cellphone failed to connect. This naturally made the family members
agitated, and they began contacting her friends at Ekpoma to assist in
locating her whereabouts.
Hear Awele: “I checked her contact notebook, and also checked my
mummy’s phone because whenever the battery of Ifeanyi’s phone ran out,
she usually inserted her SIM card in my mummy’s phone and the handset
would automatically copy some of the contacts into its memory. So when I
checked my mummy’s phone, I saw the number of Osazu, her school son.
“I called him and he told me that he was angry with Ifeanyi because
she came to Ekpoma without bothering to contact him which was very
unusual. Osazu now volunteered to go to her former hostel and ask her
friends about her. Meanwhile, Valentine kept calling me asking about
Ifeanyi, I told him that her number had not been going through. After
two days, he called that he was worried about her whereabouts. He said
he was going to Ekpoma and I told him that he should go to Ivie, my
sister’s friend who works at a laboratory. I gave him the address of the
laboratory.
“But he said he went to the laboratory, and learnt that there was
nobody known by that name working at the place. So I gave him Osazu’s
contact. Later, he called and said that he and Osazu had been moving
round Ekpoma in search of Ifeanyi. He later called that he was going to
his village, saying that he had searched everywhere without seeing her.
“On a hunch, I decided to call Osazu to confirm that Valentine was in
Ekpoma in search of Ifeanyi, and he said nobody came. Instantly I
called Valentine and told him what Osazu said; he denied ever seeing
Osazu but claimed that he spoke with him on the phone.
“I told him that he was contradicting himself; he got angry and
ended the call. After some days, he sent a text that he was angry
because of the argument, and said that there was no basis for such
argument. Then he said he would be going offshore and that his number
would be switched off.
“He had forgotten that he once sent all his contact to me which I
forwarded to my uncle who warned him to leave Ifenayi alone because he
was not a straight forward person. I asked my uncle to send the contacts
back to me, which he did.
“I called the GLO line because he had also told me that whenever he
was going offshore, only through his GLO line that he could be reached.
When I called him the first time, he picked but refused to speak. On the
second trial, he picked and I requested to speak with him, he responded
that it was wrong number.”
However, Awele said it was the same Valentine, who sent a text
message on February 6 and confessed that he killed Ifeanyi. According to
her, when she woke about 4am, her phone was blinking, indicating that
there were unread messages.
Awele narrated the shocking tale this way: “The second message was
from Valentine where he narrated how he killed my sister, where they
went to. He told my sister to follow him to Minna where he was
processing his M.Sc degree. When they got there, he did not know what
happened but all he could remember was that he was the one that murdered
my sister. That he had tried taking pills to terminate his own life
without success.
“I showed the message to my brother, who broke down in tears after
reading it. I forwarded the message to a friend. At dawn, I hurried to
the police headquarters and they asked me to go to the Division.
“Before leaving for Division, the officer in charge of operations
radioed the control room and requested for the direct phone number of
the Minna control room, which was given to him. In my presence, he
called Minna control room and they confirmed a case of murder, which
they were investigating. That was how we got to know. Two days after,
my uncle went to Minna, where he was shown a picture of Ifeanyi. He was
taken to the hotel where Ifeanyi and Valentine lodged.”
Awele said the family had already petitioned the Delta State
Commissioner of Police over the incident, adding that the homicide
department of the command in Asaba was handling the investigation.