Lekan Adekanbi, alleged mastermind of the gruesome murder of couple Mr Kehinde and Bukola Fatinoye on New Year Day in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, has given details of the brutal murder and what led him to the act.
Explaining that he acted with two other people, with who he arranged the operation, he said that he carried out the act because the victims refused to increase his salary as well as approve a loan for him to buy a motorcycle.
He said he enlisted the help of two cultists to kill the couple, adding that unfortunately both the only son and adopted son of the couple also had to suffer the same fate after walking in while their parents were being attacked.
The bodies of the two young men were subsequently bound with rope and hurled into a river at Adigbe area of Abeokuta after their death, he told reporters at the Ogun State Police Command Headquarters, Eleweran, Abeokuta, where they were paraded on Friday.
Adekanbi claimed the couple declined his loan request, explaining the New Year robbery attack on them was to forcefully extract money from them.
He said: “I took the step because the couple refused to increase my salary, and when I approached them for a loan to buy a motorcycle, they didn’t oblige.
“Since that failed, I gave the deceased my Access Bank account to which the sum of N1,102,000 (One million one hundred and two thousand) was transferred at gunpoint.
“When I realised that my identity had been known through my bank account, I decided with others to terminate the couple. That was when Waheed Adeniyi a.k.a Koffi took a knife from their kitchen and slaughtered the husband Kehinde Fatinoye, while I used sledge hammer to hit the wife Bukola Fatinoye on the head and she died on the spot.
Adekanbi, while narrated how the only son of the couple, Oreoluwa, walked to his death on the fateful day, said while the robbery was on, Oreoluwa and the couple’s adopted son, Felix Olorunyomi entered and were immediately seized, beaten and their hands fastened with ropes behind their back and thereafter driven to Ogun River Bridge at Adigbe and thrown in.
Briefing newsmen about how the suspects were arrested, the Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi said it was after painstaking intelligence investigation.
Oyeyemi said: “In the course of investigation, Lekan Adekanbi, a driver to the deceased family, was arrested based on circumstantial evidence while investigation continues.
“The suspect, Lekan Adekanbi suddenly collapsed in the cell on the 2nd of January 2023, and he was rushed to the hospital for medical care.
“But while in the hospital receiving treatment, he suddenly jumped from the bed and escaped through the fence of the hospital. His escape further confirmed the police suspicion of his involvement in the intelligence-driven the Commissioner of Police ordered the State anti-kidnapping unit to join forces with the homicide unit in order to get the escaped driver and his accomplices arrested.
“The two teams, in compliance with the CP’s directive, embarked on a technical and intelligence-driven investigation and traced the movement of the suspect to his elder brother in Iseyin, Oyo State but he had left the place before the arrival of the police.
“The teams further intensified their efforts which yielded positive results when Lekan Adekanbi was apprehended in his hideout somewhere in Abeokuta on the 21st of January 2023.
“Waheed Adeniyi a.k.a Koffi and Ahmed Odetola a.k.a Akamo were apprehended at Ogere on Thursday 9th of February 2023. The three suspects who are members of Aiye confraternity have all confessed to their various roles in the gruesome and callous murder of the family.”
