The police have arrested a domestic staff accused of killing his employer with a pestle in Awka, Anambra State capital.
The deceased, Chima Anolue, a lecturer at the Psychology Department at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, was attacked with the pestle when a fight ensued between him and the domestic servant.
It was gathered that the incident happened on Friday night, July 14, 2023, at Ifite village in Awka.
The suspect was also said to have bruised the deceased’s body with a knife after he became unconscious to make it look as if he was attacked by a third party, Punch reported.
According to sources, the suspect was captured by the local security and confessed to repeatedly hitting his late boss with a pestle after he asked him why he hadn’t done his household duties.
However, when he refused to answer, Chima slapped him, which led to a fight, where he later fatally attacked his boss.
“When he came back, he told me to cook rice. And as I was cooking the rice, he asked me why I did not wash plates. I did not reply. He then asked why I wasn’t responding to his question,” the suspect said.
“In the process, he slapped me. But I told him I usually have ear problems, and that people don’t slap me. As I was saying that, he angrily asked if I was still talking while he was talking. And therefore, he slapped me again and brought out cane and started flogging me all over,”
“Then in the process, I got angry, and we started fighting. It was also in the process of that fight that I picked up the pestle in the kitchen and hit him on the head.”
During interrogation, the suspect who first denied killing his master, later confessed to the crime after he was thoroughly beaten when his moves became suspicious.
A family source said, “While friends and relatives of the deceased were taking him to the hospital that night for medical attention after the encounter, the suspect was attempting to choke him to death right inside the vehicle where he was sitting close to him allegedly to conceal his atrocious acts. It was in the process that we discovered what was going on and therefore we started suspecting him. As that was going on also, the victim who was still alive then, used his last strength to mention the suspect’s name, before he finally gave up the ghost,”
“In his confessions, the suspect first said that it was the girlfriend of the deceased who visited him that night that attacked him. However, he eventually confessed that he was the person who killed him with a pestle.”
The suspect, said to be from the Abakaliki area of Ebonyi State, has since been handed over to the Nigerian Police Force, Awka division, for further questioning, while the corpse of the deceased Chima has been deposited at the morgue for autopsy.
Meanwhile, friends and colleagues have taken to Facebook to mourn him.
“Chima was my brother. A wonderful chorister and a fine choir leader. He comes from one of the finest family in Igboukwu, his parents have loved me like their son right from my days as an undergraduate,” one Arinze wrote.
Chima my brother went viral yesterday not because of all the fine virtues bestowed upon him by God…
But because he was gruesomely mvrdered by his househelp just because my brother scolded him for letting the food on fire get burnt.
Not once, not twice but three times this animal hit Chima with a pestle on his skull.….Chima wasn’t kidnapped, he didn’t have a road accident neither did he die in his sleep.
His beautiful young and promising life was cut short right inside his home by a person he housed, clothed, fed and paid. I don’t know how I feel or have felt since yesterday.’‘
