The alleged killer of Super TV CEO Usifo Ataga, Chidinma Ojukwu, testified on Thursday in front of a Lagos High Court sitting in Tafawa Balewa Square that the statement she gave the police was torn up.
Ojukwu provided this testimony during the trial within a trial to help determine if her confession was given voluntarily or was coerced.
A trial for the alleged murder of Ataga is currently underway against the former University of Lagos mass communication major from the 300-level.
She is accused of forging documents and stealing along with one Adedapo Quadri and her sister Chioma Egbuchu.
When the trial was reopened, Ojukwu claimed that the two statements she had written had been ripped and that she had been compelled to sign the one that ASP Olusegun Bamidele had written.
She claimed that the document that officer Olufunke Madeyinlo dictated to her was likewise made to be signed.
The defendant, who appeared in court as defence witness number one (DW1), stated that Bamidele asked her to rehearse and recount the statement to the Commissioner of Police (CP).
Before being escorted to the CP’s office in Ikeja, Ojukwu said that her hands had been tied to the chair in which she had been sitting from June 23 till the next morning, June 24, 2021.
Ojukwu’s attorney, Mr. Onwunka Egwu, brought Ojukwu into the trial within a trial.
She testified in court that on June 23, 2021, she was in her room at their home at No. 47 Akinwunmi St., Alagomeji Yaba, when her 10-year-old sister told her that there were men at the sitting room asking about her.
The witness claimed that after greeting the males in the sitting room and answering their questions about her identity, they asked if she was Chidinma.
She claims that when the men questioned her about Mr. Ataga’s phone and the Range Rover jeep’s whereabouts, she replied that she was unsure.
“My little sister called my father and informed him about the visitors.
“My Dad came out and asked the men who they were, they said they were police from the Panti Police Station.
“They said they came to arrest me and to search the house or I should go in and bring the phone.
“One of the policemen slapped me and my father told him not to slap his daughter in his house,” she said.
Mrs. Adenike Oluwafemi, the deputy director of public prosecutions, objected and said that she was giving evidence in the case rather than evidence regarding how her statement was interpreted.
But Justice Yetunde Adesanya requested advice from Ojukwu’s attorney.
According to Ojukwu, she requested her father to contact their family attorney, Mr. Onwuka Egwu, when the police detained her.
She claimed that after being brought to DCP Razak Oseni’s office, she was interrogated extensively by police.
“We went back to my house and back to the DCP’s office.
“At DCP’s office, he asked me questions. I told him that I don’t know anything about the death of Mr Ataga, that was when they made the video that was played in court.
“The DCP said I should make my statement. IPO Bamidele, therefore, took me to the interrogating room with Mr Chris, and gave me a blank statement form and asked me to write what happened.
“I started writing, Bamidele took my left hand and handcuffed it to the chair. I wrote what I narrated at the DCP’s office.
“While I was writing, Bamidele took the statement from me, read it and said it was not what happened.
“I told him, sir, what I am writing is what happened. I also told him that I asked my father to call my lawyer, he said my Dad cannot make a call that he was in custody with them. I then started writing the statement.
“When he took the statement from me and said this is not what happened. I told him sir, this is what happened. I received two slaps from the back from Mr Jemiyo.
“Jemiyo and Chris were sitting behind me, the only person facing me was Bamidele. He said “you are going to write the truth”.
“He tore all the statements I had written and presented another blank statement form. I told him sir, I was writing the truth, you tore it.
“He said if I do not comply, my family, my Dad, 10-year-old sister and my relatives will be charged with this murder case,” she said.
The defendant described how officer Bamidele played a video of the incident at the apartment and displayed pictures of Mr. Ataga’s body while pulling out his phone. Ojukwu claimed that after being instructed to write, the officer slapped her and reprimanded her for being slow. According to the defendant, she informed the officer that she was ill.
She claimed that the officer had shackled her hands to the chair, taken the statement form from her, and written the statement for her.
She claimed that when the officer read her the statement, she protested that it did not accurately reflect what had taken place, but the officer insisted that she do so or her family would face charges.
“He read the statement to me again and told me to rehearse it, that tomorrow (June 24, 2021), I will take it to the CP’s office and say that’s what happened.
“He left me there, it was around midnight”.
She claimed that when the officers returned in the morning, they requested that she sign the statement.
Oluwafemi Ojukwu confirmed that she signed the statements under cross-examination by the prosecution.
The second statement, according to the defendant, was dictated as the first was written.
When asked if she reported the slap and the blow to her head on the table to anyone, she replied, “I did not report to anybody since there was nobody to report to.”
The judge granted the prosecution and defence 14 days each to submit their written addresses in the trial within trial after the witness testified in her trial within trial.
As a result, Justice Adesanya postponed the case until January 11, 2023, so that the trial within a trial could adopt the final written addresses.
