…says he once stabbed Kemi with a knife
When Tawakalitu Ilo saw the corpse of her daughter, Kemi Ilo, in a pool of blood in a room she was sharing with a friend of hers in Ijako, Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State, she needed no one to tell her that the young lady’s gruesome murder was the handiwork of her boyfriend, Yemi Salaudeen.
According to Ilo, Salaudeen had earlier threatened to deal with her and her daughter following a disagreement between him and Kemi. She also said that Salaudeen had often accused her of taking sides with the late young lady, whenever they had any quarel.
She alleged that before Kemi’s murder, Salaudeen had been threatening her life and that of her daughter, who he accused of having secret love affairs with some of the male customers patronising her canteen located in Ijako.
I know Yemi (Salaudeen) is the killer of my daughter. Those who went to Yemi’s mother’s house said that she said he did not sleep at home the very night kemi was killed and that he only came back home in the early hours of that morning to wash his clothes and he left immediately he finished. When they got to his friend’s house, where he was squatting, they met him packing his clothes into a bag
Forty-year-old Ilo, who insisted that Salaudeen actually killed her daughter, recounted to our correspondent how about two months before Kemi’s brutal murder, Yemi came to her house at Owode, Ijako at midnight and through the window, he allegedly stabbed Kemi in the back with a knife before disappearing into the night.
The mother of six said that it was the sudden loud cry of her daughter that woke her up from her sleep that night. She said that her daughter suddenly began to shout that somebody she couldn’t see had stabbed her with a knife.
She said Kemi later told her, after she was discharged from the hospital, that Salaudeen once showed her a knife which she believed he must have used to stab her that night, adding that inspite of that incident, Kemi still did not believe that her boyfriend could hurt her.
Ilo said that it was that knife attack on her daughter that forced her to relocate from her former house, but the landlord asked her to allow Kemi to stay behind and share a room with his own daughter.
She, however, said that it was only Salaudeen that knew about Kemi’s stay in the landlord’s daughter’s room, where he eventually allegedly hacked her to death.
Narrating further how her 25-year-old daughter was killed, Ilo said Kemi’s roommate told her that someone forcibly entered the room at about 2:00am on Sunday last week while they were asleep and dealt her some machete blows on her head, killing her in the process.
“She said it was when she woke up that she saw Kemi covered with blood and called me that night to inform me about what had happened and when I rushed there that night, I saw my daughter dead and lying on the floor with blood all over her body,” Ilo said.
She further explained that after Salaudeen had allegedly hacked her daughter to death in her sleep, he went back to the house he was sharing with a friend of his and began to pack his belongings into a bag in an attempt to run away from the area. He was, however, apprehended by the people in the area, who took him to the Sango Police Station, where he’s now being held.
Ilo alleged, “I know Yemi (Salaudeen) is the killer of my daughter. Those who went to Yemi’s mother’s house said that his mother said he did not sleep at home the very night kemi was killed and that he only came back home in the early hours of that morning to wash his clothes and he left immediately he finished. When they got to his friend’s house, where he was squatting, they met him packing his clothes into a bag. When they asked him why, he claimed that he wanted to go and wash them. But when they checked the clothes, they were all already washed clothes. He was then taken to the police station at Sango.”
She further alleged that there had been frequent disagreement between her daughter and Salaudeen, who was in the habit of raining curses on Kemi and accusing her of dating men who come to eat at her canteen, where Kemi worked. She added that at a point, Salaudeen even seized Kemi’s phone and began to monitor her movement.
Ilo alleged that due to the constant fighting between Salaudeen and her daughter, she was constrained to tell him that it had become impossible for the two of them to get married to each other. This she said infuriated Salaudeen, who allegedly threatened to deal with both mother and daughter.
She added, “I called my daughter about four days ago, but her phone was not reachable. So, when I got home, I asked her why she switched off her phone and she said her, fiancée, Yemi (Salaudeen), seized her phone from her because he believed the customers who come to eat at my canteen, where she was assisting me, patronised me because of her. But my daughter told him that those people were my customers and she could not send them away. He started raining curses on my daughter and that got me angry. I picked up my phone and called him to warn him never to curse my daughter again.
“He later came and accused me of always backing my daughter whenever they had any quarrel. And I told him I was not supporting her, but that I didn’t like the frequent fighting between both of them and that if they eventually got married, things would only get worse between them. I also told him that since he had collected the phone he bought for her, he should as well retrieve all the other things he had given her and that I would not want to see both of them together again. Then, he flared up and said he knew I was opposed to the relationship between him and Kemi and he swore that he would take a reprisal against my daughter.”
A resident of the area, who simply identified himself as Demola, corroborated Ilo’s allegations that Salaudeen was responsible for her daughter’s death.
He claimed that Salaudeen’s bloodstained cloth was found in the room in which kemi was murdered and he was arrested by the police at Sango and later transferred to the State Police Command Headquarters at Eleweran,
Abeokuta.
Efforts by our correspondent to speak with the state Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Abimbola Oyeyemi, proved abortive as he did not pick calls made to his phone. He did not also reply a text message sent to him.
