From Taiwo Oluwadare, Ibadan
A 20-year-old man, Kolade Tosin, has confessed to the rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl, Ifeoluwa Apanpa, inside a church at Olodo area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
While being paraded at the Oyo State Police Command Headquarters, Eleyele, on Tuesday, Kolade told reporters that after forcibly raping his victim, he strangulated her to death for giving him the wrong password to her phone. He said he was able to commit the crime after scaring his victim with a knife.
“On 17th September, 2022, I went back home from work around 1pm because we didn’t have work that day. We were just sleeping at the shop. I told my boss that I wanted to go and ease myself, and he said I shouldn’t stay long,” he said.
“When I got home, i took the key of our church because my mum is the cleaner of the church and went to church. I packed all the chairs in the church together; I already knew the time Ifeoluwa will pass through our church to her own church. She eventually came and I asked her to assist me to carry some of the chairs I packed.
“I brought out the knife in my pocket and told her not to shout. I wanted to scare her to collect her phone but she dragged the knife with me and the knife fell to the floor.She also fell down and hit her head on the floor while trying to escape. She couldn’t stand up because she was weak, I raped her and took her phone. I requested for her password but she gave me the wrong password. When I discovered, I strangulated her,” the suspect explained.
Speaking, the Commissioner of Police, Adebowale Williams, said operatives attached to Iyana-Offa Divisional Police Headquarters were intimated about the sudden disappearance of 17-year-old Apanpa, who had left for church at about 2pm and was yet to return home.
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“A search party was immediately organised to know what caused her disappearance. While this was ongoing, a call was placed to the parents of the deceased by an unknown caller stating clearly the the lady had been abducted,” Williams said.
According to the police boss, the lifeless body of the deceased was later found beside a Bible school at Olodo area of the meteropolis. He said preliminary invsestigation revealed that the deceased had a bloody genitalia, coupled with signs of struggling from being manhandled before her death.
Williams said that investigation is still ongoing as the case has been transferred to the homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID).
The Commissioner of Police also disclosed that the command’s Monitoring Unit arrested two suspects, Afeez Abolaji and Adewale Abolarinwa, for kidnapping at their hideout.
He said two pump action rifles, three live cartridges, an ML-350 Mercedes Benz SUV, a Toyota Corolla car used for their crime operations and N2.5 million cash, which was part of the ransom they collected from their victim was recovered from them.
“Six additional vehicles; Honda Element Jeep, Lexus 350 car, Nissan Cabster, Honda Accord car, Toyota Matrix Car and a Nissan Micra car, which they later confessed to have purchased from the proceeds of their criminal venture were also recovered from the suspects.
“Upon questioning, the suspects confessed to the crime and other series of high profile kidnapping incidents previously executed in Oyo State,” Williams said.
Speaking with journalists, one of the suspects, Abolaji, said they target big cars on the roads, adding that they have made over N30 million from five operations in less than a year.
“People should desist from illegal job because they will be caught one day. There is nothing in life that has no expiry date, my friend lured me into it. Nobody is requesting money from me in my family.I just got married, I’m from Ago Iwoye, Ogun State,” he said.
Other suspected criminals arested by the command include trans-border armed robbers, kidnap syndicate and electric power transformer vandalizer among others.