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Okereke with the drum containing the dismembered body of late Ogbonnaya

However, the bond the couple shared helped solve the mystery, recounts Goodness, the mother of seven-month-old Precious (their baby, who would never know her father, slain at the prime age of 31).

Basil was a businessman selling foodstuff at Shop 23 Milaco Plaza along Ago Palace Way in Okota, Lagos. On March 1, he had gone to meet with business associates at Iddo and Daleko respectively, Goodndess recalls. She had called her husband’s telephone number to know if he was on his way home about 6pm but his phone was switched off. Her husband later called back at 6.43pm to inform her that he was at Okafor’s place.

“I felt he was probably discussing with him and didn’t want to be disturbed. By 10pm, his phones were still switched off and he wasn’t back. We kept awake till about 2am when I asked one of the boys working for him to go and lock the door. I had hoped he slept over there and that he would call me first thing in the morning. They are friends. They had known each other before he married me. In fact, my husband helped him to secure the accommodation he lives in at No. 17 Omiyale Street, Ejigbo, where he killed him.”

But alas! the call never came and Goodness had reason to be alarmed. So she called Okafor, who denied seeing Basil or that he slept in his house. “When I didn’t see my husband in the morning and with his phones still switched off, I called Okafor to find out about my husband. But he said he had not seen him; that the last time he did was on February 28. Then he came over to our place. I told him my husband had not returned home, which was unlike him, and that I wanted to check hospitals, and he followed me.”

Searching with the suspect

That day, Goodness and Okafor combed the accident and emergency wards and mortuaries of hospitals, from Isolo to Gbagada and back to Ejigbo till dusk.

“A friend suggested I go back to Ejigbo to search for him since it was the last place I heard from him. By the time we did this it was late, and somehow my spirit was telling me to sleep over at his house. Before then I had told my brothers of the situation. He initially objected to my sleeping in his house. But following persuasion from my elder brother, he agreed, and said he had to come to Ago to pick his sister first, which he did. When we got to his house, he put me in one of the rooms and brought out a pillow from his room for me to use.

Pillowcase clue uncovered by seven-month-old baby

Probably stressed by the events of the day, Goodness’ seven-month-old baby, Precious, wouldn’t sleep and was playfully pulling at the bed sheet. Unknown to her infant mind, she had uncovered a clue that led them to her father’s murderer.

“I put my baby on the bed and she was pulling at the bed sheet. Then she pulled the pillow and I noticed blood stains on the pillowcase, and I became suspicious. So I pulled off the pillowcase and put it in my baby’s pampers.

Bloodstains on the wall

“I couldn’t sleep, so I began praying. Earlier, I had been asked what I wanted to eat but I said nothing. I had no appetite for food but I asked for tea. Not long after I began to purge and had to go to the toilet. There I saw splashes of blood on the wall and I took the picture with my phone. The sister whom I begged to sleep with us in the room was close to me, so she heard the clicking sound from my phone and turned. But I pretended as I came out as if I hadn’t done anything.

“About 5.30am, when I got up to prepare a bath for my baby, I saw my husband’s handkerchief he used the day I last saw him in the wash hand basin. It was stained with blood.”

Like one who had murdered sleep, Okafor also barely slept as he decided to sleep in his sitting room instead of his bedroom. Goodness’ cries and prayers unsettled him such that he came to her door severally to inquire what was wrong. In the morning when Goodness ran out of credit, he offered to go and buy for her while she gave her baby a bath.

“It was when he went out that I sneaked into his bedroom to confirm my suspicion. There I saw blood splattered on the wall. His sister was trying to catch some sleep because of my disturbance in the night. When I saw that, I called my brothers and told them. I also kept the handkerchief with the pillowcase I had seen earlier.

“By the time he came back, my brothers were in the area. So he left the house again to pick them. But my brothers came through another route and I showed them what I had seen.” When Okafor returned, she begged him to take her to Ago Police Station where she had earlier lodged a complaint and was told to wait for 24 hours before declaring him missing. He declined on the pretext that he was tired but later obliged after some persuasion.

Looking for more clues, Goodness asked to put her umbrella and bag in his car boot, which was also splattered with blood. But she pretended as if she saw nothing. “When we got to the station, I said I wanted to make a statement that my husband told me he was in his house the last time he called me. But the policeman in charge of such cases said I would be indicting him and there were penalties for such if my claims were untrue. I replied him that I didn’t mind.”

It would however take some going back and forth and tendering the evidence she had on her before the police took her serious and took Okafor in for questioning. He still denied seeing Basil and said they should take him anywhere, that he was innocent. “It was when I tendered the stained handkerchief and pillowcase that I was allowed to make my statement and a search warrant issued. The DPO instructed that Okafor should be put behind the counter.”

Okafor later confessed that he committed the heinous crime and escorted the policemen to search his house.

‘It’s rat blood on my wall’

“When the policemen got there and saw the blood stain on the wall, he initially said it was a rat that he killed. They later saw his bloodstained mattress, which he had kept outside and the rug. He told them he had drugged my husband before killing him with an axe around midnight (and I remember seeing that axe in the house and had asked him what he was doing with an axe in the city when he was not in the village).

He said he cut him first in the head, which woke him up, and probably a struggle ensued (explaining the blood stains) between them. So he broke his two legs with the axe to demobilise him and finished him off with a cutlass. He claims it was a mistake but because he injured him so much, decided to finish it…”

Though not shedding tears as she recounted the gory details to our reporter, she was filled with anguish as she measured her words, stopping and shaking her head at intervals.

Was she aware that her cousin had any evil antecedent?

“Somehow, I suspected so because of his lifestyle. We would see him for some time and he would disappear again. Because of his lifestyle, my husband had to dissociate himself from him at some point but he kept coming around. I never knew he could be this wicked to kill my husband.”

Contrary to the suspect’s claim that the late Basil was owing him some amount of money, Goodness said rather it was Okafor that was indebted to her husband.

“I’m not aware of any quarrel between them but I remember my husband said he had borrowed him money, which he promised to pay back by July this year. He borrowed him late last year when he was about to do his wedding. My husband said it was N3.5million. He didn‘t tell me he had any quarrel with Okafor.”

So what was Okafor’s motive for killing Basil and dumping him in a drum in his area (NNPC Ejigbo)? Was it because he felt he couldn’t pay back despite the fact that he runs a men’s clothing store at 131 Ago Palace Way, Okota, or could it be for ritual purposes as speculated by many, given the stickers on his car (‘This year money shall be my servant’ and ‘2011- My year of double blessings’)?

Police sources say no part of Basil’s body was missing. Why, why, why, is the question Goodness is asking, and Baby Precious would also, when she is old enough.