By Oluwatoyin Malik
two of the three suspects, who admitted killing the Fatinoyes in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Lekan Adekanbi a.k.a Koroba and another, Waheed Adeniyi alias Koffi are trading accusation in police custody.
Adekanbi said that it was Waheed Adeniyi a.k.a Koffi who slit the throats of the couple while other one countered that he was the one who killed the wife with a hammer.
Adekanbi was among the three discovered to have killed Mr Kehinde Fatinoye, his wife, Bukola, and his only biological son, Oreoluwa in the early hours of January 1.
Saturday Tribune had an interview with the suspect. His narration goes thus: “I’m Lekan Adekanbi. I’m 32 years old and from Abeokuta. I became a driver after leaving secondary school.”
My contact with the deceased
“I started working with the Fatinoyes in 2017. I was taken to them by the man’s brother to work for him. Mr Fatinoye was still living at Quarry Road before he moved to Housing Estate.
“I was being paid N25,000 as monthly salary, but he used to give me N500 anytime I followed him to social gathering or weekends. Later, the family added to my duty. I was mopping, feeding dogs, ironing clothes, but no salary was added. I told his younger brother who introduced me to him but he just said he had heard me. I also asked him to lend me some money but he didn’t respond.”
How I planned my attack on them
“I thought of what I could do to get money from him. I decided to consult some friends. I told one of them who is a hemp smoker to help get someone with a gun who would frighten my boss with it and make him give us money. I paid him N40,000 but nothing was done.
“That was how I remembered Koffi. We are both members of Aye Confraternity. I asked him to get someone with a gun and he said that it would be no problem as he had one. He asked for N4,500 for three cartridges and said I should let him know when I wanted the job done. I told him to get one more person to make them two. That was how he got Akamo from another state.
“On December 31 at night, he called me to meet him at Abiola Way where I met Akamo for the first time. He also belonged to Aye Confraternity. They joined me at Housing Estate and went into the Fatinoyes’ house with Koffi and Akamo. I picked the house key from where it was usually kept which was known to me. We entered and went upstairs to check the rooms. I went to the kitchen and gave them drinks and water. Koffi hid behind a chair while Akamo was behind me at a corner by the door. I used nose mask.
“As my boss came in, we emerged from where we hid. The wife, on seeing us wanted to shout but I quickly covered her mouth with my hand and dragged her in. Koffi and Akamo went to my boss and asked him to lie down. As he was in that position, he was asking: ‘what do you want please?’ They told him that we needed money from the family. I asked Akamo to give him his account number. He was using Kuda Bank but it was not connecting, so I gave my boss my account number. He sent N1.102 million.
“After we achieved this, Koffi said that we could not spare them because they would expose us. He said that we should kill them. He asked Akamo and me to take the wife outside. By the time we returned, he had slit the throat of my boss. We returned inside and Koffi slit the wife’s throat also. I didn’t take any hammer there as the two are saying. The couple’s sons came in through the kitchen door. We quickly grabbed them and asked them to lie down. I was asked to stay with the sons, with me holding the gun we brought to scare them to submission. Akamo and Koffi dragged the bodies of my boss and his wife upstairs.
“Koffi said we should take the two sons to the father’s car which we did. Akamo and I stayed with them. I described where generator was to him and he went to get petrol which he poured in the room where the bodies were dragged to. He set the room on fire and came out immediately and joined us. We drove away.
“We actually targeted a river at Brewery side into which we wanted to drown the two sons but we couldn’t because there were people around. We went to Ogun river at Obada and threw the sons in it. We saw one of them, Felix, struggling. We went to park at a distance and Koffi told us to go and check him. We got there but didn’t see him.
“Thereafter, we took the car to Oke Ata area and parked it there. We put about 14 phones taken from the Fatinoyes into a bag, took a bike and left for the hotel we lodged at Abiola Way.
“Koffi and Akamo immediately asked for their share of the money. I went to a PoS operator and gave both of them N550,000. I took the rest of the money as the person who brought the job.
“The following day, Akamo went to the hotel room and removed the phones. He also went to get a mechanic. I didn’t know what happened thereafter but Akamo said the mechanic burnt the car and sold the parts for N100,000. The car is worth about N10 million.
“I regret what happened because I didn’t intend to kill my boss. I only wanted to get money from him. The government should bestow mercy on me.”
However, the other two suspects said that Adekanbi was just trying to pull himself out of the trouble he created, saying that he was the mastermind of the killing and that they carried out his instructions at the deceased’s house while he did most of the atrocities.
Koffi’s confession
“I’m 29 and from Abeokuta. I am a furniture maker. I got to know Adekanbi through someone he contacted on phone. I was sitting beside the person. The following day, he called me and said he had a grievance against his boss and wanted to forcefully collect his money. He said he was not paying him good salary and had also sacked him. He told me of his plan to go to their house late in the night on December 31.
“He asked for a gun and I told him I had one that belonged to my cult group. He gave me N4,500 for the cartridges.”
The truth about our operation
“It is not true that I killed our female victim. Adekanbi was the one who hit her on the head with the hammer. He also got a cutlass from the house because he was very familiar with where things were. He gave the cutlass to Akamo and had the hammer while I held the gun. However, he took the gun from me when the couple were about to come, using it to threaten them.”
The third suspect, Ahmed Odetola a.k.a Akamo continued the narration: “I am an electrician, aged 39 and married with a child. Lekan (Adekanbi) collected the gun from Koffi. He said we should not worry as the couple would cooperate with us. It was Mr Fatinoye who first entered. We hid at the dining area. I had baseball cap on my head. Lekan is untruthful by saying he used a nose mask and a cap. His face was bare. He didn’t use anything. Koffi didn’t use anything at all.
“As the couple entered, it was Lekan who approached them, ordering them to lie down. The woman wanted to open the door to escape but Lekan quickly dragged her back and covered her mouth. He was with the woman while Koffi and I were with the man. We tied his hands. Lekan asked me to come and stay with the woman while he went to the man to get him transfer money to him.
“I gave him my Kuda account number and he told the man to transfer money into it but it was unsuccessful. Lekan then gave his account number to the man into which he transferred money. After that, Lekan went to the woman and asked her to send money too but she said that she was not having money. Lekan then brought out the hammer he kept in his bag and struck the woman’s head. She twitched and started gasping. Lekan struck her head with the hammer the second time and she went still.
“Koffi asked him why he did that and he replied that the couple had recognised him and could arrest him later. He went to the kitchen, brought out a knife and asked Koffi to kill the man. He initially told me to do it but I said I couldn’t. Koffi slit the man’s throat.
“As we finished that, their children came in through the kitchen door, as we had locked that of the entrance. Lekan collected the gun from Koffi, pointed it at the children and told them to lie down in the kitchen. We tied them with ropes and Koffi stayed with them. Lekan and I carried the bodies of the couple to a room upstairs. Their blood flowed as we carried them. So, he was lying when he said it was Koffi and I who carried the bodies upstairs.
“He came and told us we had to do something to the children as they had seen his face. He said we could not leave the dead bodies just like that because people would know that they were killed. He said we should burn the house with the bodies to make it look like a fire outbreak. He went for petrol, sprinkled it around the room, went for matches and ignited the fire. Before then, he had driven the car out of the premises. Koffi and I were in it, with the two children locked in the boot. The fire was much that we even thought he had been caught in it. He later came out, got into the car and drove to Ogun River at Obada into which we threw the Fatinoye‘s children.
“I burnt some of the phones we found in the house except four of them. I sold three of them to one Aboki and started using the fourth one. I also sold the car and got little money from it.
“Lekan did not give us N550,000. He gave us N200,000 each because he reached the limit of the transfer transaction.
“Lekan did not tell us that we would kill anyone. I really regret committing this crime.
I joined cultism in 2014
In the latest update, the command’s PPRO said that two other suspects, whose names he gave as Usman and Aanuoluwapo, have been arrested for allegedly buying the car of the deceased from one of the murder suspects, Akamo.
The suspect, Akamo reportedly contacted AanuOluwapo who drove the vehicle to Usman’s workshop where the car was burnt before it was dismantled and sold in parts. They said that the car was sold to Usman for N150,000.
According to the image maker, police investigation revealed that the two suspects were duly informed that the car was stolen, but still bought it
He said that the state Commissioner of Police, Frank Mba, has ordered that all the suspects be arraigned in court as soon as investigation is concluded.
