Chidinma Ojukwu, the suspected killer of Super TV’s Chief Executive Officer, Usifo Ataga, told a Lagos High Court sitting at Tafawa Balewa Square yesterday that police forced her to sign a confessional statement.
Ojukwu stated this while testifying at the trial-within-a-trial to determine whether the statement she made was voluntary or coerced.
The former University of Lagos 300-level Mass Communication undergraduate is on trial for the alleged murder of Ataga.
Ojukwu alongside one Adedapo Quadri and her sister, Chioma Egbuchu, is also charged with stealing and forgery.
At the resumed trial, Ojukwu, who was led in evidence by Mr Onwunka Egwu, said that the two initial statements she wrote were torn and she was forced to sign the one written by ASP Olusegun Bamidele.
She said that she was also forced to sign the one dictated to her by officer Olufunke Madeyinlo.
The defendant, who testified as the defence witness one (DW1), told the court that Bamidele asked her to rehearse the statement and narrate it to the Commissioner of Police (CP).
Ojukwu said that before she was taken to the CP’s office at Ikeja, her hands were handcuffed to the chair she sat in from June 23 till the next morning on June 24, 2021.
“At DCP’s office, he asked me questions. I told him that I don’t know anything about the death of Mr Ataga, that was when they made the video that was played in court.
“The DCP said I should make my statement. IPO Bamidele, therefore, took me to the interrogation room with Mr Chris, gave me a blank statement form and asked me to write what happened.
“As I started writing, Bamidele took my left hand and handcuffed it to the chair. I wrote what I narrated at the DCP’s office. While I was writing, Bamidele took the statement from me, read it and said it was not what happened.
“I told him, sir, what I am writing is what happened. I also told him that I asked my father to call my lawyer, and he said my dad cannot make a call because he was in custody with them. I then started writing the statement. When he took the statement from me and said this is not what happened. I told him, sir, this is what happened. I received two slaps from the back from Mr Jemiyo.
“Jemiyo and Chris were sitting behind me. The only person facing me was Bamidele. He said, “you are going to write the truth”. He tore all the statements I had written and presented another blank statement form. I told him, sir, ‘I was writing the truth, you tore it.
“He said if I do not comply, my Dad, 10-year-old sister and my relatives will be charged with this murder case.”
She said that when another statement was read to her, she told the officer that it was not what happened but the officer said, “This is what you are going to say or else your family will be charged.”