For 30-year-old Nweke Chinonso, the tragic events of Sunday, April 19, 2015, could as well be the handiwork of a spiritual influence or force beyond his control. Cos according to what he told newsmen while trying to explain how and why he stabbed his neighbour to death, Chinonso, an Imo State indigene said he should be seen as the victim of a supernatural force that took control of him.
“I do not know the spirit that got inside me that day,” he began.
Chinonso, who is being held at the Department of Criminal Investigations, Yaba, Lagos, told PUNCH that he only sat in the front of his house to relax that Sunday morning when the deceased and another neighbour came to trouble him.
“I no longer go to church,” he said. “I was relaxing in the front of my apartment at 100, Mba Street, Ajegunle, when my neighbours, Ismail and Kunle (Abiola), told me to join them where they were sitting. I told them I would not and they started to foment trouble.
I did not want to associate with them because I don’t speak their language and I can’t trust them. But while they were troubling me where I sat, Ismail pinned my arms behind me and Kunle slapped me.
Immediately he slapped me, I could not control myself anymore, it was like I was on remote control as a spirit pushed me to go and take a kitchen knife. I rushed in and took the knife, came back outside and stabbed Kunle.”The deceased was stabbed twice – in the chest and jaw. As incredible as Chinonso’s claim sounded, he swore he was telling the truth. He explained though, that Abiola had in the past slapped him for no concrete reasons.
“There was even a time I went to a drinking joint in our area and saw him (Abiola) there. As soon as I sat down, he came over and challenged me for coming to the same joint where he drank. He slapped me right there and I could not do anything,” Chinonso said.Asked if there were other issues that could warrant the alleged harassment he was suffering in the hands of the deceased, Chinonso told Saturday PUNCH, there had never been any issue between them.
As soon as Chinonso stabbed Abiola, he slumped and was rushed to the hospital as blood gushed from his chest and jaw.
Residents instantly restrained Chinonso, tied him up and beat him as police were alerted to the incident. Abiola was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital
However, residents who spoke with PUNCH said Chinonso’s version of the story was all lies. A resident, Saheed Adebisi, said the incident started when a fight broke out between Ismail and Chinonso but Abiola only attempted to separate them when he was stabbed.
“Chinonso stabbed him because he believed that Abiola was on the side of Ismail,” he said.The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Kenneth Nwosu, who confirmed the incident, said investigation was still ongoing and that the suspect would be charged to court when it was completed.
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