LITTLE is new about crime and passion, or crimes of passion. What is new is the determination of the Nigeria Police to trivialise the tragic death of Super TV boss Usifo Ataga in which Chidinma Adaora Ojukwu is a prime suspect.
They have been parading Chidinma before the media, organising their own press conferences, as if they accomplished a feat. Why are the police celebrating a homicide or possible murder they have failed to crack?
At first, they made Chidinma seem the sole executioner of the tragic event that claimed Ataga’s life on 15 June. Ataga family members were not alone in insisting that there were more suspects in the crime than Chidinma. Did the police need such prompting?
Why are the police reducing a tragedy, a crime, which by the earlier confessions of Chidinma involved drug distribution, consumption, hacking into a bank account, to a cheap home video that are dominating social media platforms?
The House of Representatives by its warning that Chidinma “must not die” fears that the police are mishandling the matter. They are. Do they not know?
What case would the police present against Chidinma whose demeanour announces a new confidence, carriage, and attire fit for someone billed for the runway?
Who pays for her preparations for the media appearances? The clothes, the hair, the makeup? Why does she not look like a suspect? We have seen suspects the police parade? Who pays her bills? And why?
Her sobriety is gone. A closer watch reveals an occasional smile as she prattled for the media.
She is getting better daily in running a script that compounds the case. Her jumbled stories have moved from “I did it” to “I didn’t do it” without abating the emphasis.
The police made these possible by granting her full media access like a celebrity who has a confession to make, but needs protection. What interest do the police have in Chidinma making and unmaking her case, whatever her case is?
Why do the police inundate us with Chidinma’s stories when they claim investigations have not been concluded? Are these tales not meant for the court?
Lagos State Commissioner of Police Hakeem Odumosu said more suspects have been arrested. Why were they not named? Why are they denied roles in the Chidinma production? Is their story unfit for public consumption?
Chidinma suggested she was raped. Ataga, she said, was on drugs. Like her. She stabbed him twice during a second rape attempt.
Raped Chidinma accepted she received the drugs from the supplier, withdrew money from the deceased’s account, the figure keeps changing, and was dating the man she claimed she stabbed to death.
Has the weapon used in the attack been found? Chidinma in an account claimed to have thrown it away.
By part two of the series, she did not kill Ataga. Why is Chidinma’s earlier detailed account of the killing changing? Is it because preliminary examination of the body, according to the family, indicated torture, bonds on Ataga’s hands, more stabs than Chidinma’s two, and the scenes from the hotel room where he died supported a struggle before his death?
Chidinma’s story has moved to Ataga’s troubled marriage. It would seem her role in life is to fish out men in mangled marriages, circumscribe them from existence, and enlist the police to make a show of the achievement.
A little advice for Chidinma. She needs a lawyer to at least stake her intellectual rights in the production since the police are more interested in an entertainment production than a trial.
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FINALLY…
IT is unimportant whether the Nnamdi Kanu case comes up or not on 26 July 2021. The Federal Government is already on trial for its refusal to explain how it got Kanu into Nigeria.
THE Senate voted Thursday against electronic transmission of election results, citing uncertainties over availability of telecommunications networks across Nigeria. The vote is actually affirmation of rigging of the 2023 election. A majority of our Senators, across party lines, voted for rigging.
SENATE President Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan who hailed the voting down of electronic transmission of results as “the beauty of democracy” by his silence supports the approval of over N4 billion for security agencies to monitor our personal messages, including his. The same networks that are unstable to handle election results will be stable for security monitoring.
HEADLINES hailed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu as the latest crime buster. If you read the stories, you realise that the Governor’s convoy disrupted operations of thieves robbing commuters stuck in Lagos’ punishing traffic. Unless he intends to move from one traffic jam to another, the Governor would have to do more about curbing crime in Lagos.
EXCUSE, or complaint, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) thinks it can explain escape of suspects they have been investigating. The story is that Yahoo Boys use unclad ladies to distract EFCC operatives on duty. Women should protest this version of discrimination. Maybe, we should amend the law to ban ladies from associating with Yahoo Boys, as EFCC pleases.
