‘Everything about Chidinma changed rapidly’ – Neighbours share details about suspected killer of Usifo Ataga
The mood on Akinwunmi street, in Alagomeji, Yaba, on Friday morning, June 24, 2021, was calm but sombre. Worried residents and traders spent most of their business hours discussing Chidinma Adaora Ojukwu’s alleged crime.
“Why did she do it?”
“Fear people who are too gentle; they can do the unimaginable.”
“The man is also useless. How can he be with another lady when he has a wife at home?”
Chidinma is the suspected killer of Usifo Ataga, CEO of SuperTV, a yet-to-be-launched digital television. Police say she was arrested at Akinwunmi street on Wednesday, June 23, 2021, where she shared a ground floor apartment in a two-storey building with her family.
Known as the calm young girl whose striking beauty always announces her presence, many residents in the neighbourhood said they had paid attention to Chidinma’s growth from her secondary school days before gaining admission into the University of Lagos, less than 3km from her home.
Residents say her father, a public servant, “is a benevolent man and has lived in this area for over a decade.”
On Thursday, June 24, 2021, Akinwunmi street, which was hitherto famous for housing the National headquarters of one of Nigeria’s largest Pentecostal churches – Foursquare Gospel Church, made news headlines for the very wrong reasons.
During a visit to the area by Neusroom on Friday, residents painted a picture of a young lady with a long history of drifting to waywardness, one resident claimed she constantly counselled her.
There would be little time to listen. On Sunday, June 13, 2021, Chidinma told her parents she was going for an ushering job and would be away for a few days, but took a 35-minute trip from Akinwunmi street to an Airbnb apartment on Adewale Oshin Street in Lekki Phase I, where she lodged with Ataga for what would have been a memorable ‘baecation’, using the pop culture parlance. It was just two days to Ataga’s 50th birthday, but he would be allegedly murdered by a lady he was spending his special golden jubilee moments with.
Earlier in the day, his mother, Sylvia Ataga, had posted his photo on Facebook to celebrate him.
“Happy golden birthday to my son Usifo,” Sylvia wrote. “My son who gives me joy. May the rest of your life remain golden, and all your lines fall in place. You are loved beyond measure and my prayer for you today is that God will take control of all your endeavours. The son who makes me happy! Congratulations on this milestone and God’s blessings always.”
Ataga’s body was found in the pool of his blood in an Airbnb apartment. Police say N5 million was withdrawn between the hours after he was murdered and the time the bank account was blocked, but the suspect claimed she withdrew N380,000 to pay her school fee.
His mysterious death transfixed the nation and puzzled many until Thursday when 21-year-old Chidinma was paraded as the suspected killer. She claimed she and Ataga were high on drugs when an argument broke out, and she stabbed him twice. “At some point, he was choking me while I was on the kitchen cabinet, and then I stretched out to the knife and stabbed his neck twice.”
A fashion designer close to Chidinma’s residence told Neusroom: “I saw Police came with one Hilux van on Tuesday night, I was so scared and I thought they could start their indiscriminate arrest again, I had to take a longer route to my house just to avoid passing through the front of the house in order not to be arrested.”
He, like so many other residents, is still in disbelief and disappointment. They have the same question. Why did she do it?
CCTV footage from the Airbnb apartment and Chidinma’s confession gave a grim confirmation that she was the lady with Ataga.
“Seeing the video of her confession was just heartbreaking. I said it couldn’t be Chidinma when I saw it yesterday,” a resident says.
A Hausa-speaking security guard at the residence denied Neusroom correspondent and other visitors access to the house. He slammed the gate at the correspondent and refused to open the gate whenever anyone knocked. Other residents hit the gate for several minutes before he opened the gate.
Many of the residents in the area refused to speak, but they gathered to talk about Chidinma.
While some are still finding it difficult to process how Chidinma got into the situation, many blame Ataga “for bringing misfortune upon himself.”
“What was he doing with a 21-year-old girl old enough to be his daughter?” they asked in disdain.
It is not uncommon to see Nigerian undergraduate female students being pimped out to socialites, but many say it is highly prevalent among UNILAG students.
The findings of a report, ‘Causes of Sexual Promiscuity Among Female Undergraduate Students in University of Lagos’ published in the Nigerian Journal of Guidance and Counselling in 2000, show that “peer group pressure and socio-economic background of students significantly promote sexual promiscuity among female students.”
Residents say Chidinma’s socio-economic background couldn’t have led her into sexual promiscuity.
“There is nothing she requests that the father doesn’t give her,” a female resident says
According to information on the website of Nigeria Property Center, the average cost of a 3-bedroom apartment in Alagomeji, Yaba, where she lives with her family, is N1.7million. A family that can afford an annual rent of N1.7million cannot be categorised among the poor Nigerians who the World Bank says live below $2 per day.
What Residents Say
“I just see her pass by; she doesn’t really have friends on this street and hardly mingle with people in the neighbourhood, except a lady called ‘Jinja’ who has a small shop up the street,” the fashion designer says.
‘Jinja’, who was in a pensive mood when Neusroom correspondent approached her, denied being friends with Chidinma. “She is not my friend,” she said. “I only know her as a customer; anybody buys from me, you too, you’re buying from me, so I could say I know you as a customer.”
Although she denied being friends with the suspect, Chidinma has been seen in a viral video gisting with some male customers while watching over Jinja’s shop.
During a street conversation by some residents who gathered beside Methodist Primary School at the end of Akinwunmi street, a resident recounts how the suspect’s father constantly urged her to call Chidinma in and counsel her to live a better life.
Chidinma, residents say, is known to skip home regularly, leaving her father distressed.
“Recently, her distressed father came to me when Chidinma left home and didn’t return for several days, asking me to help counsel her as a mother,” a female resident who claimed to be a very close friend of the family says. “When I saw her with an expensive phone, I was curious and asked her; then she said ‘we don’t do small boys, we do big men’, I just told her to be careful and counselled her like a mother. Sadly she chose to continue on the wrong path.”
Another male resident attributed her sudden transformation to the vacuum created by her mother’s absence, who he believes would have paid more attention to her growth, but other residents disagreed.
“The woman in Ojukwu’s house is not Chidinma’s mother,” residents say. “We don’t know her mother, but she doesn’t live with the man and that should not be a reason for Chidinma to become wayward.”
The female resident who claimed she constantly counsels Chidinma believes the suspect would have confided in her mother when she started going out with older men, and the mother would have guided her.
The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study of Princeton University, United States, found that children raised by parents cohabiting or a lone parent were twice as likely not to graduate from high school. Data from the survey also showed that even a child in a stable single-parent household was likely to do worse on some measures than a married couple’s child.
Some residents also claimed, “everything about Chidinma suddenly changed when she started participating in beauty pageants.”
When a resident tried to blame Chidinma’s father for “not cautioning her when she started coming home with expensive phone and jewellery,” others disagreed and said “the man played his role well as a father.”
“Ojukwu (her father) tried his best to give her the best and raise her well; sadly, she chose to become who she turned out to be,” a male resident said while analysing reports of Chidinma’s confession from a copy of The Punch newspaper he had bought that morning.
“The story is everywhere. I deliberately bought the newspaper to read the full story; I told people where I bought the paper that I know her very well,” he boasted.
Ojukwu, arrested for preventing his daughter’s arrest, has also been released on Thursday, Police say.
While questions, side talks in the community are still circulating, Police say Chidinma would be charged to court when the investigation is concluded. If convicted, she will likely be sentenced to life imprisonment, a legal practitioner told Neusroom, “the robbery really complicates issues, it has a 14-year imprisonment term.”
“Usifo Ataga had his flaws, may have broken his marriage vows by engaging in an extra-marital affair, but there was no reason for him to die the way he did,” a resident says as other residents in the neighbourhood are hoping that Chidinma gets a lighter sentence.
