ON Saturday, May 5, the entire environs
of Imalefalafia area of Ibadan was thrown into grief over the
death of a 22-year-old lady who who was suspected to have fallen victim of
ritual killers.Crime Features gathered that the young lady whose name was given
as Tope Adenuga left home on Friday, May 4, saying she was going to vigil in a
Cherubim and Seraphim church she started attending not quite long before the
incident, but to everyone’s suprise, it was Tope’s corpse that was brought back
home on Saturday.Information gathered revealed that Tope collapsed in the
church around 2.30a.m.while prayer was going on and started vomiting blood. She
was revived and taken to a private hospital along Ososami road, from where she
was referred to another hospital. Her church members rushed her to Oluyoro
Catholic Hospital, Oke Offa, where she was being treated before she finally
gave up on Saturday morning. Tope was said to have made efforts to respond on
how she came about the sudden illness but each time she tried to speak, blood
would start coming out of her mouth and nose.Comments from neighbours indicated
that the deceased was known to move with male friends whose identities
were unknown as they always came in cars with tinted glass to pick her.According
to one of the deceased’s neighbour who pleaded anonymity, “I was sitting
outside around 9.30p.m. when she received a call and she told me she was going
to vigil. Within a twinkle of an eye, I saw an unregistered car with
tinted glass parked in front of the house. She entered the car and the
driver drove off but I could not recognise the people inside the car
since the glass was tinted.”Another source who claimed to be Tope’s close
friend added: “I was in my husband’s house when I saw Tope’s call on my phone,
I picked the call but all I could hear was groaning. I wondered what could be
happening so I decided to call her back. When the phone rang, it was a man who
picked it and he started raining curses on me, saying that I should not
call the number again if I would not want my mother to cry over me. I told him
that it was my friend’s phone and I should be allowed to speak with her,
but he hung up on me. I was trying to call her back when my husband warned me
not to call back so as to avoid that person’s curse.”She added: “Tope was
supposed to take me to church that very night but when I waited and could not
see her, I decided to stay back at home.”According to a young man who said he
was in the church with Tope when she first collapsed, “we were about starting
the vigil when she entered the church. As soon as we started, we were just
singing when she started jerking like someone who had entered into the spirit
realm but I noticed that her situation was far from that.“Immediately, we
offered prayer to her and she recovered thereafter. When it was around 4.00
a.m., we took her to a nearby hospital but she was rejected. We took her to
another hospital where we were referred to Oluyoro hospital.“We got to Oluyoro
at about 6.00 a.m. and the doctor said that before they could start treatment,
we must pay N10,000. We gathered the money among the church members and she was
admitted.The doctor started treatment; they gave her drip and I was asked to
get some prescribed drugs for her at the pharmacy. As at then, she was still
responding to treatment. Unfortunately, she died at about 8.00 a.m.Tope’s
family members, who were invited, refused to inform the police about the
incident but promised to take the corpse to Ayelala shrine where a curse would
be placed on her killers and her spirit would be sent out on revenge of her
death.Tope, who hailed from Ijebu-Ode was living with an Ekiti woman under whom
she served as an apprentice learning fashion designing. She was reported to
have continued staying with the woman and her family, due to the cordial
relationship they had formed, even after she obtained her freedom and started
working...CKN