A businesswoman and the prosecution witness in a criminal trial, Mrs. Abiola Olatunji, has told a Lagos chief magistrate court, sitting at Ebute-Metta, how her 18-year-old maid, Iyanuoluwa Abayomi, confessed to theft through the administration of juju by a traditional thief-catcher known as “Ajilegege”.
Olatunji, who is also the complainant, testified at the resumed trial of the maid and her two alleged accomplices, Mrs. Christiana Arawunmi, 47 and Omolade Omowunmi, 47. The threesome were slammed with an eight-count charge of conspiracy, stealing of jewellery and money, and receiving stolen goods.
Mrs. Olatunji told the court that the defendant confessed to the crimes after she was asked to hold a calabash with feathers by Ajilegege at Idimu, Lagos, where she (Olatunji) took her to.
She said she had to resort to the traditional method of detecting the crime, because several thefts had occurred in her house and all pleas to make the maid confess proved abortive.
According to her, all 13 people who were in the house went to Ajilegege and were made to carry the calabash, and when it got to Iyanuoluwa’s turn, she started confessing.
Olatunji, said that when they got home Iyanu brought a wrapped black nylon in which she had hidden N93, 000, an amount greater than the N86, 000 which was missing.
Olatunji told the court that the incidence occurred on June 7, 2012, after the memorial service in honour of her late husband.
She said that other amounts, N350, 000 and N25, 000, and some of her jewellery had been missing between March 3 and April, 2013, and that she would have forgiven the maid but for the statement of the third defendant (Omolade Omowunmi)’s husband, that she (Olatunji) was accusing the maid wrongly.
The defendants were first arraigned in June 2013, when one of them, Christiana Arawunmi, pled guilty to the charge of receiving stolen goods and money from the maid, and was sentenced to a year in prison.
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