The murdered son in the middle, flanked by his father, Edwin Obele, and his step mother.
*Petitions FCID Homicide Section Alagbon insisting on corpse investigation
*Family happy over Alagbon’s professional handling of case
By Kemi Kasumu and Kehinde Bashir, General Editor
A Nigerian woman in The Diaspora, Mrs Florence Omobolanle Owodunni of Bavaria in Germany, has raised alarm over the death of her son and only male child of her ex-husband, Mr. Edwin Esom Obi Obele, to a suspected ritual killing by the same man fathering the boy.
According to copy of a petition sighted by this reporter, dated July 5, said to have been
Translation of Edwin Owodunni’s last communication with brother showing what was done to him in his father’s village on the day he was allegedly murdered.
sent to the FCID Homicide Section at Alagbon Close, Ikoyi, Lagos July 12 titled, “Petition of conspiracy, murder and stealing, against Edwin Esom Obi Obele”, Mrs Owodunni started feeling foul play since when Mr. Edwin Obele started dodging to talk to her on phone while the Edwin Owodunni was with him in Nigeria.
She said, “I am writing a petition about a suspected murder of my son Edwin Owodunni his age is 20 Years old, who was a citizen of Germany. He was born and brought up in Germany. His father is Nigerian whose name is Edwin Esom Obi Obele.
“My Son Edwin has been coming to Nigeria to visit his father in Nigeria and this trip was his fourth visit. Edwin came to Nigeria on 16th of March 2017, for the burial ceremony of the Mother from his father, and the burial ceremony took place on the 24.03.2017 in the village at Owerri.
“My Son Edwin is expected to go back to Germany on the 7 th of April, 2017. While in Nigeria Edwin has communicating with us (via Phone) So he called on the 12 th of April, 2017 to inform us that he has extended his flight to 12 th of May, 2017 that he still want to spend more time with his father. That was the last time we family here in Germany heard from Edwin. All effort to reach Edwin’s father prove abortive. All effort to reach my son prove abortive. The father kept avoiding calls and he later switched off his line. (She gave Mr. Edwin, the father, phone numbers in the petition).”
“But to our surprise, the latest news we heard about my son Edwin was that he committed suicide. We got this shocking news on the 26 th of June, 2017 and we were told Edwin committed suicide about 3 month ago which any of the family here in Germany or in Nigeria wasn’t aware about it. We got the sad news that Edwin died in his father’s Village in Owerri. We were told he hanged himself. All effort to see Edwin’s Father was abortive because ever since we got the news, he has been avoiding our calls.
“My Family member from Nigeria tried to go to the fathers hotel which is located in “Approach SuiteHotel”, End of 21 Road, Festac Town, Lagos but they didn’t see him, His home adress is unknown to anybody but we know that he own so many houses in Nigeria,also Hotel in Abuja.The father,s name is Edwin Esom Obi Obele.
“Through our privacy investigations, we suspected the father uses his son for rituals. Because the last message Edwin sent to his elder brother in Germany (via WhatsApp) was that they put a chain in his neck in his father’s village like Isakaba. And the evidence of the message has been printed out. We tried to ask more question from Edwin but he no longer respond. So we suspected Edwin’s phone was seized away from him.
“The father buried the boy corpse by himself without any family consent. So we suspected the father to be very big criminal, ritualist. We are all in deep fear because the man harm us. All we want is that the Nigerian Police Force to investigate the man. We need to see the corpse, Edwin’s phone, his German passport and all other properties. We want to investigate the corpse.
“To this end, we want the Police to thoroughly do a deep investigation into this case to unravel the mystery behind the death of my son. Looking forward to your kind response,” Owodunni wrote in a letter said to have been written to the FCID Alagbon Lagos.
Our efforts to get Alagbon to speak on the case though were positive but not yet successful as the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the department concerned was said to be away in Jos as at time of media visit on Thursday.
Although none of the police officers, including a top ranking among them met, denied the case was with them, they however declined divulging information as they separately insisted that it was not their job but that of the PPRO to give all the details that we required on the issue.
Further media investigations however showed that Mr. Edwin Obele, who is said to be currently in the net of the police at Alagbon having been arrested on Thursday July 13, 2017, was reliably gathered to have made self confession to the crime but demanded that his current wife should be brought before him before he could give the details of all that transpired over the alleged murder of Edwin Junior.
A reliable source told us in Lagos that the current Edwin Obele’s wife (name not yet known), said to have run away from Lagos to the East since the uncovering of the alleged crime by the FCID, came into his home as a househelp. Details were not given as per how she became a wife but it was gathered but not yet confirmed that all the children she bore for Edwin are females where Edwin Owodunni born by Mrs Owodunni to Mr. Edwin Obele was the only son of the family.
We also gathered that Mr. Edwin was alleged to have tactically planned the murder such that personnel in a particular police station approached in search of the boy in the village had tried hard to tell the mother’s family to accept the death of the boy as act of God trying to cover up for Edwin Senior thereby trivialising the weight of the alleged crime, the source said.
We particularly gathered that when invited to Alagbon over the petition against him, Mr. Edwin Obele honoured the invitation but with a police guard and lawyers. The police at the Homicide Section of the FCID was however said to have dismissed the police guard and the lawyers telling them that they were not the ones invited but the suspected murderer, making Alagbon rising tall in the eyes of observers as the unit that has helped most in ensuring that cover up already orchestrated by Edwin with the aid of some policemen and lawyers ended in no more than futility.
The last however will not be heard about the pathetic story until the detectives said to already be in away in the East with a mission to arrest the “wife” at large, bring her before her husband who promised to reveal how the murder of the boy actually took place.
