THERE was a new twist over the death of a 19 year old girl, Chinyere Ebere, who was stabbed to death for refusing to date her killer, Saliu Oladayo, as the parents insisted that the suspect must marry her corpse before burial.
The parents of the deceased, Mr and Mrs Nwanma, who hailed from Orlu in Imo state, said Oladayo must perform the traditional marriage rites before Chinyere could be buried in their home town.
Speaking with Nigerian Tribune in their Oke Aro home in the capital city of Akure, Mrs Nwanma said “it is a tradition in our place that the man must marry the corpse of our daughter killed in cold blood.
”He must perform the normal traditional rites by taking the corpse to our village in Orlu East in Imo State where the marriage would take place.
“It is mandatory that all traditional requirements must be fulfilled even though it will be doubled because he brought our daughter corpse for marriage. He would perform all the traditional rites before our family would let him go.
Speaking on the implication, she explained that “without this traditional rites, every young person from the family of the boy would never attain marriageable age and may die a sudden death just like our daughter.
”This is not our making, it is the tradition of our ancestors even before we were born. Our people all over the world are waiting for the court judgment. Any way it goes, the boy must perform that rites to our daughter’s corpse.
Meanwhile, 24 year old Saliu Ladapo, blamed the devil for the death of the 19 year old Chinyere, and said he did not know what came over him when he stabbed her to death.
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Narrating how he stabbed the girl, he said “after she came back from his West African Examination, people on the street told her that I came with another woman. She was annoyed with me over that and she came to my place on Saturday last week. She was talking to me that what is the meaning of it that a girl came to her that I came to ask her out.
“She started cursing me that if I made love with another girl, that I won’t make it in life. I was not talking to her that is why she laid curse on me. I told her I can’t do that and I returned the curse back to her. She left with annoyance.
“She came back on May 15th, 2018 I asked her to forgive me and we were talking and I said she should return the curse and she said she can’t do that and I seized her phone and we were both inside dragging the phone.
“I was begging her to return the curse and she went out to tell one of our neighbour that I seized her phone and the woman came to ask me. I told the woman what she did and the woman left to call second neighbor, before she (neighbour) came back, I don’t know what came over me, I went to take knife and stabbed her to death.”