A 23-year-old student at Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ayomide Adeleye, has confessed to the murder of Christiana Idowu, an 18-year-old female church member. The chilling confession, which came after his arrest by the Lagos State Police Command, revealed the shocking reasons behind the crime.
Adeleye, a philosophy student, admitted to killing Idowu, who was an Industrial Training student at Yaba College of Technology, due to his financial struggles.
“I killed her because I had financial problems,” he confessed, explaining that he lured her to his home under the guise of helping her fix her phone.
The tragic incident unfolded when Idowu visited Adeleye’s residence.
“She came to our house around 5 pm on the day of the incident and asked me to repair her phone,” he recounted.
However, things took a dark turn as Adeleye, in a desperate attempt to find a way out of his financial woes, attacked the young woman.
“I just grabbed her, applied pressure. She started struggling. She didn’t really shout because I already suppressed her. I then squeezed her throat, and she gave up,” Adeleye described in graphic detail.
After murdering Idowu, Adeleye embarked on a grim plan to dispose of her body and extort money from her family. He buried her in a shallow grave behind his house, digging through the night.
“By 4 am the following day, I woke up and continued digging. Honestly, I did not close my eyes till daybreak,” he said.
In a cruel twist, Adeleye then reached out to the victim’s mother, pretending that her daughter had been kidnapped.
“The first thing I said to her was, ‘Hello, madam. we have your daughter,'” he recounted.
Using this deception, he demanded a ransom of N3 million, knowing that the grieving mother could not afford the full amount.
“I know for a fact that she didn’t have three million,” he said, adding that he was willing to accept any amount due to his desperation for money.
After some back-and-forth negotiations, the mother managed to raise N360,000, which Adeleye demanded be paid into a SportyBet account to avoid detection. Unbeknownst to him, his National Identification Number (NIN) was linked to the betting account, ultimately leading to his capture.
“If I had not uploaded my NIN, it would just be an empty account. The moment I uploaded my NIN, all my personal details, my location, my address, my name, everything was already on SportyBet,” Adeleye admitted, explaining how his attempt to cover his tracks backfired.
The police traced his location through the betting account and the victim’s phone, which was still in his possession at the time of his arrest.
Now in police custody, Adeleye expressed deep remorse for his actions, particularly due to the relationship between his family and the victim’s.
“I regret that I killed her because my mum and her mum were friends,” he said, adding that he is prepared to face the consequences.
“I don’t deserve any mercy for what I have done. At the same time, I ask God to forgive me. What I did was totally wrong and I regret it.”
Overcome with guilt, Adeleye admitted to having suicidal thoughts following the murder.
“I feel remorseful for what I have done. If there’s any way I could be given a second chance, I want to be given one, but I deserve death, honestly,” he said, revealing that he had attempted to take his own life while in custody.
“I have been planning to kill myself. While I was in the guard room, I tried to look for any sharp object to cut myself so that I would bleed to death.”