Aramoko-Ekiti, headquarters of Ekiti West Local Government Area of Ekiti State, has been tense since last Thursday when a mother of four was found beheaded on a farm in the area.
Sources told newsmen in Ado-Ekiti, at the weekend, that the headless body of Mrs. Edijana Lucky was found on a footpath leading to the farm said to belong to her husband, Mr. Lucky Nnaefenwa, on the day.
According to the sources, she was taking food to the Urhobo, Delta State-born Nnaefenwa at the same farm at about 10a.m on Thursday where she met her untimely d*ath.
According to the leader of Urhobo community in the area, Chief Samuel Okorefe, he was informed of the incident on telephone, explaining that he learnt that the victim was said to have taken food to her husband in the farm.
According to Okorefe, shortly after she had gone to the farm, her husband was said to have run to town, raising the alarm and calling for help, and telling other Urhobo indigenes that his wife had been beheaded by some unknown people suspected to be ritualists.
He said he went with other elders to the palace of the Alara of Aramoko, Oba Olu Adeyemi, and reported the incident, adding that thereafter, they notified the police.
He said a team of policemen went to the scene of the incident and removed the remains of the victim.
The cops were said to have found that the head along with the neck had been severed just as the two arms with some chunks of her buttocks were all missing.
Following the statement given by her husband to the police, he was detained as, according to the Urhobo community leader, he was a suspect in the crime.
Chief Okorefe described the deceased as an easy-going woman loved by the Urhobos as well as the natives of Aramoko. she, who was said to be about 40 years old, had four children with only the second born, Eunice (10) the only girl.
The eldest child is Samson, 12, who is in primary five like Eunice (Aina), Kingsley, 8, is in primary 3, while the last born, Endurance, 6, is in primary one, while all of them are pupils of Saint John Primary School, Aramoko.
According to the Urhobo community leader, when he asked the husband about how the incident happened at the police station in Aramoko, he told him that when he waited for long and couldn’t see his wife bring the food, he decided to come to town only for him to see her lying in her own pool of blood with her head and arms missing.
Chief Okorefe, however, said the husband denied any complicity in the killing of his wife.
Members of the community were seen at the residence of Chie Okorefe who shared fence with Oba Adeyemi’s personal residence.
When newsmen asked the Alara of Ararmoko about the incident, he explained that Chief Okorefe came with his people to the palace to report the case to him while a meeting was on-going, but had to end the meeting abruptly when he was briefed about the incident.
He corroborated the comments of the natives who said such gruesome k8lling had never taken place in the town.
Oba Adeyemi, whose installation is still being challenged in court due to the refusal of the former Governor Segun Oni-led administration to respect the court injunction that ordered that installation process should be put on hold, expressed shock about the development.
He said: “This kind of horror is strange in this community. It has never happened here.
This kind of horrendous maiming with parts removed is terrible.
“We believe the law enforcement agents would be able to unravel the perpetrators of the dastardly act. I’ve met with the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) and State Security Service men on the incident, but nothing concrete has been discovered.”
In her comment about the gruesome killing of Mrs. Lucky, the Yeye Jumu, a high chief in Aramoko stated that such incident had never happened since she was born in the community, alleging that the forceful installation of Oba Adeyemi could be responsible for the strange happening.
She expressed fear that such horrible incident might continue to happen in the community until the rightful person chosen by Ifa oracle and the true winner of the election by the council of original kingmakers, Prince Olusegun Aderemi, was installed.
Another native, Adewale Alaro, also corroborated Yeye Jumu’s observation, calling on the state government to expedite action on the call for stoppage of the monarch from attending the state Council of Obas and having access to the state fund.
The spokesman of the state Police Command, Mr. Olu Victor, (Assistant Superintendent of Police), disclosed that the husband of the victim said he asked his late wife to bring food to him in the farm and after some considerable time he decided to come to town when he didn’t see her.
On his way, he discovered the mutilated body of his wife in the bush along the footpath to his farm and came to report the case to the police immediately.
The police image-maker explained that a team of policemen had removed the body and deposited it at the morgue in Aramoko General Hospital for autopsy.
He noted that the husband of the victim was detained because the police suspected foul play because he was the only one who saw the dead body of his wife.
Victor declared that the command had not concluded the investigation or indicted the husband, but disclosed that the command had sent for their forensic experts to help unravel the misery behind the killing of the victim.
He, however, revealed that the husband of the deceased was in the custody of the State Criminal Investigation Department(SCID), Ado-Ekiti, for interrogation.
