…begs late Ataga’s family for forgiveness, speaks on drug use, childhood
Newsie Events Media:
Miss Chidinma Ojukwu, the prime suspect in the death of the Chief Executive Officer of Super TV, Usifo Ataga has told Sunday Punch in an Exclusive interview that she don’t want to die over the case.
The University of Lagos undergraduate, amid cries, pleaded “I regret killing Mr Ataga. I don’t know what my future holds but I don’t want to die. Please, I don’t want to die because of this case. I have not killed before.”
While being paraded by the police, reactions trailed the way she was answering questions from Journalists as she was accused of not showing remorse.
“I was just trying to comport myself to answer questions during the parade and not that I am not showing remorse. I totally regretted everything I did and I am sorry. Mr Ataga’s family, I am deeply sorry for what I did. If I had my life back, I wouldn’t do anything like that. I am deeply sorry and I hope you forgive me,” Chidinma said.
Ataga, the Super TV CEO’s corpse was discovered after he and Chidinma reportedly lodged in a service apartment in the Lekki area of Lagos State the previous day, with her not being around when it was discovered, raise suspicion of her complicity in his death.
According to the police, they tracked and arrested her at her father’s Alagomeji, Yaba residence.
Upon her arrest, Chidinma confessed to the crime and attributed her action to the influence of hard drugs and alcohol.
During her initial statement while being paraded by the police, Chidinma said she met the late Ataga about four months ago. She also said that she and Ataga were “having fun” when an argument broke out and she stabbed him twice after which she withdrew N380, 000 from his account using his ATM card.
On how she was located , a special unit, information and communication technology, created by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, revealed that it tracked the suspect, who used different SIM cards– both Nigerian and foreign ones.
In the interview with Sunday Punch, Chidinma opened up on her childhood, drug addiction, and other things that transpired between her and the late Ataga.
On her childhood, Chidinma said her parents separated when she was two years old and she started living with her uncle, Chijioke Obi, in the Mushin area of Lagos State.
She added that while growing up, her childhood ambition was to become either a musician or an actress.
She said, “My role models were Tiwa Savage, Beyonce, Rihanna, Genevieve, and Regina Hall. I schooled in Johnson Primary School and also a government primary school in Mushin. I later went to Sidman College in Sabo, Yaba. I was two-year-old when my parents separated, I was little, so while I was growing up, I stayed with my uncle, Mr Chijioke Obi, in Mushin. I don’t know if he bears Izu, but it was my uncle that trained me.”
The suspect said that her Drug addiction
started when she got into the university.
She noted that upon completion of secondary school education, she gained admission to study Mass Communication at the University of Lagos.
Chidinma said, “I started smoking after I got into UNILAG.”
She also confirmed she’s the person in a trending video showing a lady puffing out cigarette smoke while soft music plays in the background.
She stated, “I am the one smoking in the trending video. I started smoking a few years ago. Old-time friends introduced me to it and we don’t talk anymore. Everything started after I entered UNILAG, but not actually when I am in school, it could be other places. But I am not the one in the other video (dissociating herself from another trending video showing a lady exhibiting her butt).”
On her relationship with Ataga, Chidinma described him as just a friend she met a few months back, faulting claims that he neither took hard drugs nor alcohol.
Narrating some of the moments she spent with the deceased, she said, “Mr Ataga was a friend and I don’t know how to elaborate more. He has not shown me pictures of his family but he sometimes acts like he was married and not that he is married (sic). I have met him up to four or five times; he takes drugs and drinks alcohol. It is not that I am trying to put anything together.’’
Also, the police said that on Thursday they released Chidinma’s father and the operator of the apartment where the incident happened, Mrs Nkechi Mogbo, on bail. The suspect’s father was arrested over what the police described as obstructing the arrest of her daughter while Mogbo had been in police custody after investigation identified her as the operator of the apartment.
Odumosu said, “Chidinma’s statement exonerated her father as she said that he was not aware of the incident. We released him. Also, the lady in our custody, one Mrs Nkechi Mogbo, who leased the flat from the property owner and used it for a service apartment, has been released on bail.
“After Magbo was arrested, she assisted the police because of the information she gave us. Now that we got the principal suspect, and the fact that the principal suspect confessed that she singularly committed the act, and equally went further to explain that she never met Nkechi Mogbo, but that she only phoned her and that they transacted all the business online, I have ordered her release on bail while we continue our investigation.’’ [source: SundayPunch]
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