Pastor, wife in SSS net over kidnap, murder

Posted by admin Headlines Saturday, December 24th, 2011

Presiding pastor of I am That I am Church, Minna, Niger State, Evangelist Okechukwu Ifedi, his wife, Juliet and an accomplice, Victor Ibegbu have been arrested by the Niger State command of the State Security Service (SSS) over alleged kidnap, extortion and murder.
The three were arrested over allegations of kidnapping and murder of one, Kingsley Chidozie Elekwachi who the couple alleged to be having illicit affairs with Juliet. They were also alleged to have extorted a ransom of N500, 000 from relations of Elekwachi for the release of their son even when they knew he had died.

The revelation of the gory story of Elekwachi’s death started when a relation of the deceased, Ben Jude petitioned the Niger State Command of the Directorate of the State Security Service that Kingsley Chidozie Elekwachi, who did his NYSC in Minna with batch No. NG1080107 and passed out in July, 2011 went back to town on October 9, 2011, to see a female friend but has been kidnapped by unknown persons.

Elekwachi, an indigene of Awomama, Oru East Local Government Area, Imo State and a graduate of architecture from Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State had met Juliet during his orientation at the NYSC camp at Paiko in Niger State and a relationship developed between the duo without the lady, Juliet informing the deceased that she was married and also a mother of one.

Juliet’s husband however discovered he illicit relationship between his wife and her lover, late Elekwachi from the SMS messages he was sending to her phone, which he intercepted. In order to establish the truth, the woman was pressurized by her husband to lure her secret lover back to Minna after his NYSC on October 9.

The lady at the centre of the crime, Juliet, herself a graduate of accountancy from the Ebonyi State University and her husband were alleged to have conspired with Victor Ibegbu to pick up the victim on his arrival in Minna and took him straight to the Ifedi’s residence near Mobile quarters, Tunga Minna.
Dr. Larry Obiagwu, Director, SSS in Niger State who paraded the suspects before journalists in his office in Minna, disclosed that the husband and wife with their accomplice kidnapped their victim who they chained and locked up in a room from October 9 to 14.

The SSS boss explained that after torturing their victim, the trio later forced their captor to ingest about nine tablets of diazepam (valium), along with a bottle of gin and three bottles of beer.
Obiagwu said Kingsley Elekwachi immediately went into a state of coma and sensing danger his kidnappers, Okechukwu, Juliet and Victor took their victim and dumped him whilst on leg and hand chains at an isolated spot along the Minna Eastern bye pass.

He said after the kidnap and suspected killing of Elekwachi, the suspects perfected their next line of action by contacting the parents of the deceased to negotiate for a ransom of one million naira.
After series of negotiation in which they promised to release the victim that they have murdered, the family was said to have paid five hundred thousand naira in two parts of two hundred thousand naira and three hundred thousand naira respectively to the suspects.

According to Obiagwu, after thorough investigation, a team of its operatives led by himself visited the scene where Elekwachi was dumped on the 13, after combing the precincts it recovered bones believed to be that of a human being and may invariably be that of the victim, which it has secured and shall be tendered as evidence when the suspect are arraigned before a court.

Speaking to journalists, the prime suspect, Ikechukwu who claimed to be an evangelist with “I am that I am Ministry” admitted kidnapping the deceased and drugged him but however denied killing him and attributed his action to the unfaithfulness of his wife who has been cheating on him despite nursing a two and half years old baby.
The 28 year old self acclaimed secondary school dropout claimed that his graduate accountant wife, Juliet has been having illicit affairs with late Kingsley who normally sent her graphic details of their love making which got him enraged and decided to teach him a lesson but dramatically Juliet stunned journalists when she insisted that although she is not legally married to Okechukwu, he was not a murderer as she lured her secret lover to Minna to clear her name with her live in lover.

The suspects had also planned to kidnap their own 21/2 – year old daughter in order to extort five hundred thousand naira ransom from the parents of Juliet but the plan hit the rocks due to their arrest by the SSS penultimate Tuesday, after successfully hiring an unsuspecting 16 year-old teenager Jennifer from Lagos for that purpose.
An unremorseful okechukwu told journalists that he decided to stage the kidnap of his own daughter in order to teach his unfaithful wife a lesson after initially carrying her along in order to defraud her parents and later blackmailed and subsequently divorce her.wp_posts