The inch-long scar on the neck of 53-year-old Mrs.
Christiana Ashinwo, is one of the physical reminders
of the horror of Sunday, April 24, 2016.
Christiana Ashinwo, is one of the physical reminders
of the horror of Sunday, April 24, 2016.
She sat on a chair quietly in the sitting room of a
house in Agbado area of Lagos, which she built
with the sweat and suffering of many years as a
single mother and plank vendor. Her head was
bowed when our correspondent went to meet her.
But when Mrs Ashinwo looked up, her eyes were
glazed with a faraway look that would easily
giveaway the fact that she could have witnessed
trauma, great trauma that she obviously had yet to
recover from.
Who would blame her? Watching her daughter killed
before her presence, is enough to give her chills
every moment for the rest of her life. The horrific
incident she witnessed and survived few months
ago in Kwara State remains so fresh on her mind.
Our correspondent had reported on April 30 how
Mrs. Ashinwo and her daughter, 30-year-old
Oluwatosin Ashinwo, an employee of MTN in Ilorin,
Kwara State were attacked by a knife-wielding
obsessed suitor of the young lady, 45-year-old
David Ogundele.
Mrs. Ashinwo survived the attack, her daughter
didn’t.
The older woman’s injuries were no less extensive,
as she spent many days in the emergency unit of a
hospital in Ilorin as doctors battled to save her life.
She would later spend another two months in the
intensive care unit of the hospital.
Our correspondent paid her a visit in Lagos, days
after she was discharged and brought back home.
With a very raspy voice and intermittent cough that
came out with each word, one would conclude that
all was still not well with the woman, who was left
for dead in the pool of her own blood in Ilorin that
fateful day.
For her, the agony she feels with each morsel of
food and gulp of liquid passing through her knife-
damaged throat was nothing compared to the daily
torment of thinking about how she lost her first
child, breadwinner, and daughter.
“I knelt down to beg my daughter’s killer as he held
the knife that later took my daughter’s life. I
thought kneeling would pacify him,” she said.
The story Mrs. Ashinwo told was one of agony,
climaxing at the moment she laid in a pool of her
own blood and tried with every ounce of her waning
strength to crawl to where her daughter laid
lifeless.
“I was dead; I don’t know why God brought me
back. But I am sure I was dead that day. I tried to
crawl and touch my daughter but my strength
failed. I could see she was not breathing. There
was blood everywhere; mine and my daughter’s,”
she said.
According to her, the day of the attack was the first
time he would meet the killer, Ogundele.
Mrs. Ashinwo said, “The first time we spoke, he
called me and introduced himself as Engineer
David. He told me he was my daughter’s friend and
I should help him to appeal to my daughter to
marry him.
Mrs Ashinwo
“I was surprised but I told him that my daughter
was a 30-year-old woman. She was free to make
her own decision about who to marry.
“He called again some weeks later and said he and
my daughter had settled the issue.
“The next time, he called, he was very angry. He
said he had never been humiliated the way my
daughter humiliated him. It was few days after my
daughter’s birthday. He said he organised a
birthday party for her and invited his friends and
even bought a car as gift but she did not honour the
invitation.
“I did not know what to say. My daughter already
had a car and already has someone else she
wanted to marry. I told him not to be annoyed and
forget about the issue since my daughter had made
up her mind.
“Prior to April 30, I started having some bad dreams
about my daughter and became really concerned. I
decided that it was time to go and check on her to
know how she was doing.
“On my way to Ilorin, the man (Ogundele) called
again and said as soon as I get to Ilorin, he would
come and pick me at the park. I said nothing. But
since I did not even know him I went straight to my
daughter’s place without calling him.
“When I met my daughter, she took me to a
woman, who seemed to be her confidante. We ate
and the woman told me that my daughter had a
fight with one man called Engineer David that day
and the man threatened to kill her.
“I did not waste time; I stood up and told her I
must report to the police. But my daughter told me
to let the matter go. She said I was just making a
big issue out of a small matter.
“She said that was why she did not like telling me
some things some times. I let the matter go
because I did not want to be like an overzealous
mother.”
But that was one decision that would haunt Mrs.
Ashinwo every second of every day.
The following day, Sunday April 30, without any hint
about the danger that lurked in the shadow, she and
her daughter had just got home from somewhere
that day. As they entered Oluwatosin’s flat,
Ogundele, who was said to be have been hiding
around the flat, cornered them in the flat.
Mrs. Ashinwo said, “He entered and locked the
door behind him and put the key in his pocket. I
had just finished bathing when my daughter called
out to me that he was in the flat. I quickly dressed
and prepared to meet the man that had been
disturbing me so much with calls. When I saw him,
I said ‘Good day, pleased to meet you’ and he
replied that, ‘there is nothing good about today.’
“As soon as I saw him, I sighted the knife he was
holding. I asked him what the problem was and he
kept quiet. I did not understand what was
happening. He was saying so many things I did not
understand. I asked him if my daughter owed him
anything. I promised to pay back everything. He
said she did not owe him anything. He was just
angry.
“I told him that even if they offended each other, it
should not be that bad that it would require the use
of a knife. I told them they could still be friends.
When I realised he had no intension of dropping the
knife, I went down on my knees. I was begging him
to drop the knife. Then, he came to where I knelt
and carried me up.
“Just when I thought the issue would end, he
rushed at Tosin and held her down on the bed. He
started stabbing her furiously. As my daughter
screamed, I rushed at him. I could not just stand
and he stared stabbing me too over the body.”
Scars from stabbing on Mrs. Ashinwo’s back
By the time the attack was over, Mrs. Ashinwo had
been stabbed at least 10 times in her torso, with
the knife going through her throat in the
As all became quiet in the room where the dying
women lay, Ogundele, dropped his weapon, the
bloody knife and locked his victims in the
room,Saturday PUNCHlearnt.
Minutes went by as Mrs. Ashinwo tried to call out
to her daughter who was bleeding from every parts
of the body.
She said she was so weak she could not even call
out to her daughter who had become lifeless at that
point.
Lucky for her, she heard someone in a kitchen
behind her daughter’s window. The woman said she
used the last ounce of her strength to call the
person, who later raised the alarm.
By the time the door was broken down, it was too
late for Oluwatosin. She was pronounced dead on
arrival at the hospital.
As Mrs. Ashinwo told this story, there was no doubt
it was with tremendous agony as she relived the
gory details.
Saturday PUNCHhad earlier reported that Ogundele
was arrested in Osun on Saturday, May 14, after the
police tracked him down with undercover agents.
But Mrs. Ashinwo said the police have not even
contacted her to give evidence. She said she could
not understand why Ogundele has not been charged
to court.
The spokesperson for the Kwara State Police
Command, Mr. Ajayi Okasanmi, said he did not
have information about the prosecution of the
suspect when our correspondent called him.
http://punchng.com/knelt-begged-yet-slaughtered-
daughter-presence-mother-mtn-worker-murdered-
suitor/
daughter-presence-mother-mtn-worker-murdered-
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