Never in the wildest imagination of
29-year-old Anthony Ogboru did he envisage to spend the just celebrated
Christmas and New Year behind the counter, let alone to end up in one of the
prisons in Lagos, for as long as the courts ruled!
As you read this piece, Ogboru, an
indigene of Delta state is being detained at the dreaded State Criminal
Investigation Department (SCID) cell in Yaba, over a case of alleged murder.
He allegedly stabbed one of his
neighbours to death during a fight on December 22, 2014.
Crime Guard gathered that
Ogboru, a driver with Worldwide Commercial Ventures located in Matori area of
Lagos, engaged one Jonathan Ameh, a father of three, in a fight at their
residence in Gowon Estate, Okonola in Egbeda.
Trouble, as gathered by Crime
Guard, started for the duo after Ogboru’s sister rushed into their one-room
apartment, with her wrapper tied on her chest, and informed Ogboru that one of the
tenants, Jonathan Ameh, dashed into the bathroom unannounced while she was
taking her bath.
Irked by the tenant’s action, Ogboru
was said to have gone to accost him (Ameh) in his apartment while members of
his family were still awake. Time was 10pm.
An argument was said to have ensued,
which degenerated into a fight, during which some curious tenants reportedly
peeped from their curtains while the concerned ones came out to calm the
warring parties.
Ogboru and Ameh were said to have
been taken to their respective apartments by the good Samaritan tenants who
also retired to their apartments, with the assumption that the dust had
settled.
Barely had they settled down when
another uproar was heard outside. By the time they rushed out, Ameh was
reportedly found on the ground, in the pool of his blood, with a knife stuck in
his heart region.
The perplexed tenants were said to
have run in different directions in search of a vehicle with which to convey
the dying father of three to the hospital. While that was going on, another
group of onlookers were said to have held Ogboru and her sister, apparently to
prevent them from escaping.
Policemen from Gowon Estate Division
were immediately contacted, consequent upon which Ogboru was arrested and
transferred to the SCID.
In this interview with Crime Guard,
Ogboru who was full of remorse, shook his head intermittently in self pity,
wishing the hand of the clock would be turned back to that fateful day, so as
to right his wrong.
At a point, he burst into tears
saying: “I never intended to kill him. I have never killed anyone in my life.
It was a mistake… “, he paused . Continuing, he said: “After my sister reported
the matter to me, I went straight to Jonathan, not with the intention to fight
with him. I knocked on his door twice before he came out and angrily asked what
I wanted. When I asked why he barged into the bathroom while my sister was
bathing without even apologising to her, he responded by asking if that was why
I came knocking that late. Thereafter, he banged the door in my face, saying I
should leave if I had no better issue to discuss with him.
At that point, I shouted at the top
of my voice, warning him to stay off my siblings and the next thing he did was
to open the door and told me that I had no right to issue him any warning. He
dared me to repeat the warning and when I did, he punched me in the face and we
started fighting.
After the first round of fight, I was
taken to a restaurant in front of my house. While there, Jonathan came from
nowhere with an iron rake, which he landed on my head. He raised the rake again
with the intention to hit me the second time. At that point, I took a knife I
saw in the restaurant with the aim of defending myself. In the process, it pierced
into Jonathan’s chest.
I never knew it was stuck in his
chest because we still continued fighting. Even when I saw blood, I thought it
was from my body”
Crime Guard learnt that one of
the onlookers raised an alarm when he saw blood all over the place. By then,
Ameh was becoming weak. At a point, he fell down, before it became glaring that
he had been stabbed.
Expressing regrets over his action,
Ogboru said, “I feel very bad about the incident that caused his death. I swear
I did it in self-defence . We have never been at loggerheads.
“Before the incident, my sister sold
a phone to him for N3000. About a week later, he said the phone was bad and
insisted that his money be refunded. I appealed to him to give me some time to
pay him. But at the end, he said I should forget about the money and the matter
ended like that. So, you see, I have no reason for killing him. It was all a
mistake.”
He has been charged for murder.
Spokesperson for the Lagos State
Police Public Relations, Kenneth Nwosu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police DSP,
said the suspect would soon be charged to court.
Culled: Vanguard
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