How two sisters severed co-tenant’s genitals with kitchen knife
As if they were acting a script for some horror movie, both sisters took place before their septuagenarian father – the venerable Pa Sule Adoga who watched on with disbelief until his wayward daughters tore off his tenant’s genitals, leaving the body of the youthful Ogwaje Edo lifeless. It was until then that Pa Adoga […]
As if they were acting a script for some horror movie, both sisters took place before their septuagenarian father – the venerable Pa Sule Adoga who watched on with disbelief until his wayward daughters tore off his tenant’s genitals, leaving the body of the youthful Ogwaje Edo lifeless. It was until then that Pa Adoga realized he was not daydreaming, but was standing helplessly as a living witness to some gory site made possible by his own very blood.
It was 9pm on December 23, 2009. Preparations for Christmas were at fever point at this time for residents of Agbogo Street in the seedy Ugbokpo, headquarters of Apa local government area of the state. The deceased- a popular auto mechanic who is known around as Engineer, and famed for his job and the ability to play encouraging roles at youth circuses, was rounding off preparation for the festive period. His workshop at the mechanic site at Ugbokpo had been bursting with jobs. There was hardly the time to count the proceeds that kept pouring in from anxious vehicle owners who were eager to pay any amount at this time for a job for the slightest fault on their engines. Engineer was closing the workshop that evening to join his newly married wife, Sadia, a maiden he married barely a week ago from a neighbouring village, using his charming looks and the added factor for being a popular town boy.
He was struck with surprise when Sadia paid an unannounced visit to the workshop. All the same, it was a relief, setting his eyes on her beauty under a hectic, laborious job – at least it was a break from the tortuous stress of the over-time. That is not all; Sadia was handy – she would count and keep the mounting proceeds of naira notes which the anxieties from the crowd of Christmas customers could not allow him to know. But it was not to be as he wished. The visit brought bad news – one that haunted him from the very day he brought the innocently beautiful maid into the massive compound of Pa Adoga. It was news from Pa Adoga’s two daughters Dorcas Ene Adoga and Esther Adoga.
Dorcas 30 and Esther 25 have plagued Engineer Ogwaje for sometimes now. The news of their trouble is common around Agbogo area of Ugbokpo, and Engineer who has lived with them for sometime has become used to it, and was always stomaching their tantrums with patience. This is more so that his respect for their father who has taken him all along as a son, kept him from launching bold actions. But what Engineer could not tolerate was for the girls to lay their hands on his 19-year-old wife.
“So Engineer hurriedly parked and left the workshop”, an elder brother of the deceased, Sam Edo Ogba told our correspondent who visited the Ugbokpo police station for inquiries, last week. His story is that Sadia Mary was thrown out of the house by Dorcas and Esther, both of whom ganged up to beat her for no known provocation other than that the newly married girl cannot lay claims to tenancy in their father’s house. “We know they have a hidden reason which they did not say, but they purposely planned to kill my brother so they set out to provoke him by beating his wife that evening”, Sam Ogba said.
The news that poured out of Sadia’s lips was not one that Engineer would take kindly, having been fully aware of what extents Dorcas and her younger sister, Esther can go. Sadia told her husband of a mild misunderstanding that broke out between her and the two sisters over playing of music in the house. She said the two sisters registered their anger at her for merely thumbing up the volume on video. She reduced the volume accordingly, but this did not suit the motive of her attackers who jumped up with allegations that she makes too much noise in the house as if she was the only occupant. But Sadia was alone in the house, and could not have been talking, let alone “make noise”, more so that she is this new, shy maid from the village who is not loved by the sisters.
What started as mere complaints, climaxed into a fight between two perpetual trouble makers and the maid of barely a week in an urban centre. It was a fight that separated Sadia from her love, marriage and home forever. Not done with beating her, the two ladies chased her away from the house. “They said after all, she was not the one who paid the rents, that they did not know her as their tenant. They warned that she should not think of returning to the house, not even to visit her husband there”, Sam came again.
This was how the journey to the death of Engineer Ogwaje began. He patiently listened to the long, bad news from his wife, and hurried his boys to start parking. He dismissed the crowd of customers and wished them happy Christmas which he did not live long to celebrate.
The auto mechanic walked into the house, his wife trailing. Engineer’s demand for an explanation for their outrageous action, got the two sisters up. They were already standing at the gateway into the large compound, waiting, and prepared for a fight. They fell for it. It was a fight to finish. Engineer Ogwaje fought a mechanic’s fight, a man’s fight, beating them all. Pa Adoga, the father of the twin evil, was happy; at least it was a beating to teach his daughters a bitter lesson, the type that will send them parking, if not for marriage, at least from his house. He desired a happy moment in his life when somebody; anybody and from anywhere, will surprise him with the solemn demand to take the hands of his daughters in marriage, anyhow. That moment never came, but the moment to teach them a lesson for being around all times when their mates have all found life partners, came with the beating from Engineer Ogwaje. Engineer had always been a son to Pa Adoga, a churchman, but this day, he was more than a son. He was like a saviour.
There was nobody around to separate the fight; all neighbours had travelled for the festive period. Pa Adoga whose words would have instantly stopped Engineer, was reeling in ecstasy, fantasizing about how the beating could turn the heads of his daughters for good. Sadia, the second present person at the moment had no kindness left in her to stop her husband from the bullying. Whatever good measure of kindness in her was driven out by the duo of Dorcas and Esther whose beating would have addressed the torment they have unleashed on her since the first day she set her foot in the house.
The late Ogaje in the course of the fight overpowered the two ladies initially but they wrestled the engineer to the floor, when one of them fetched a club from their room, with which she hit the head of the deceased.
The late Ogaje according to an eye witness fell to the ground after the heavy blow to his head. It was at this point that the two sisters brought out a cooking knife from their room and pulled off his trousers before stunned on-lookers and cut off his penis.
It was at this point that the onlookers were jolted into action. While some fled the scene of the crime, others rushed at the ladies, overpowered and took them to Adoka Police Station. The corpse of the slain Ogaje was taken to the General Hospital in Ugbokpo.
It took the intervention of elders in the area to avert a communal crisis because of the reaction of youths who felt aggrieved by the treatment meted out to Ogaje. Attempts by the youths to raze down the building of the landlord was stopped by the elders.
At the Police Station at Adoka, the police officer in charge refused to comment on the issue, saying that he had no such authority. Contacted, the Benue State Police Public Relations Officer, Richard Dauda said he was yet to be briefed on the crime.