Salawa Abeni’s ‘blackmailer’ is 19-year-old YABATECH graduate – Emmanuel Oladunjoye

The Lagos State Police Command has arrested the alleged blackmailer who attempted to extort money from veteran Waka singer, Salawa Abeni, by threatening to release her nude photos in April.

The operatives of Rapid Response Squad (RRS) who arrested the suspect on Thursday after trailing him for three days, gave his name as Emmanuel Odufowoke Oladunjoye, a 19-year-old National Diploma (ND) graduate of Electrical Engineering from Yaba College of Technology, Lagos.

Jason, as he identified himself in his WhatsApp conversation with the Waka Legend, had threatened to release Salawa’s semi-nude photos if she fails to give him money.

Salawa had called his bluff and spilled the beans herself when she received the threatening messages.

Neusroom reported that after the suspect was exposed in April, he dumped the phone number he used to communicate with the singer as all calls by our correspondent to the line were unreachable indicating that the SIM card has been destroyed.

Oladunjoye, according to information on four of his Facebook accounts seen by Neusroom, was born on December 5, 2000 and Police say he is a resident of Brentfield Avenue, Peace Estate, Magboro, a community along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway in Ogun State.

Police statement quoted the suspect as saying he found the nude photos in a memory card he picked up on the floor in YABATECH sometime in November 2019.

After downloading the nude photographs to his phone, he said he picked up the singer’s mobile number from her Instagram page.

“On 1st of April, 2020, I chatted her up and also called her after sending a few of the photos to her online,” he told Police. “My intention was to negotiate with her for few bucks and for me to destroy the photographs.”

He said after hearing about his action in the news he quickly destroyed the SIM card he used to speak with Salawa in order not to be traced.

Oladunjoye said “I thought everything was going on fine until the following day when I heard the news of the blackmail over the radio. I was with my mother, she was even cursing the blackmailer unknown to her that I was the brain behind it”.

He further stated that: “I immediately sneaked out, destroyed the memory card and threw my mobile phone and SIM card into a nearby wetland in Magboro. Since then, I never mentioned it to anyone and called Madam Salawa Abeni about it again”.