It was a story in the air. Now it has turned out to be true. Professor Funmilola Adefolalu was actually set up for the kill by a househelp she took in, but sacked for her misbehaviour.
Neighbours had said they had seen the young girl lurking around the neighbourhood with two young men the Saturday before the Sunday the university teacher in the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, was killed.
Many of them were surprised when they heard of her death on Sunday, because her usually loud dog did not bark throughout the night.
Unknown to them, the househelp, Joy Afekafe, had been let in by the widow, apparently thinking the young lady came to beg for the job she lost days earlier, back.
She had a deviously sinister motive: she let in her two male friends, who proceeded to bludgeon and stab the woman to death. Earlier reports said her throat was slit. They stole from the woman’s home and took off.
But now, Joy is in police custody and singing like a canary with the gory details of how they killed the widow, who lost her husband years ago. He was also a professor in the school before transferring his services to another federal university in the South-West of the country.
Joy Afekafe of Gbeganu, community in Minna, is, for now, a prime suspect in the gruesome murder of the late Professor.
The Police Command in a statement in Minna on Tuesday by its spokesman, DSP Wasiu Abiodun, said Miss Afekafe served as the professor’s housemaid for three weeks.
According to the police after she was laid off, the suspect met her classmates named Walex and Smart and narrated her ordeal to them.
“During interrogation, the suspect confessed that she served as the deceased’s housemaid for about three weeks, and she was laid off due to her misdeed in the house.
“She said they went to the residence on 28/10/2023 at about 1600hrs, with a motorcycle and she surfaced at the gate, while the lecturer opened the gate for her.
“Walex and Smart later entered, beat the deceased, hit her head with a stood and stabbed her with a knife brought by Walex while Smart took another knife from the kitchen, and stabbed her severally”.
The suspect added that the deceased phone and laptop were taken away, while the battery of the vehicle parked in the compound was removed before they fled the scene.