Cordelia Onuwabhagbe, the grieving 56-year-old mother of the late Augusta, allegedly killed by her boyfriend, has told a Lagos High Court sitting in the Igbosere area of the state that she once regarded the defendant, Benjamin Nnayereugo, as a member of her family, but never knew he was capable of murder.
- +Killaboi: He Was Like A Son, I Didn’t Know He Was A Killer’ — Victim’s Mother
While testifying during cross-examination, the grieving mother said the defendant, also known as ‘Killaboi,’ frequently visited her home, where he ate, rested, and sometimes slept.
While testifying during cross-examination, the grieving mother said the defendant, also known as ‘Killaboi,’ frequently visited her home, where he ate, rested, and sometimes slept.
“Until this ugly incident that led to my daughter’s death, he was like a son to me. He came to my house, ate, rested, and slept, but I didn’t know he was a killer,” she said.
The witness, who put her daughter’s age at the time of death as 21 years, five months, 10 days, and 11 hours, also denied knowing that his alias was ‘Killaboi’ but said she got to know this after Augusta’s death.
She told Justice Ibironke Harrison that the defendant attended her church twice and she thought he was a good person but it turned out to be a ploy to deceive her.
While recounting what she knew of the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death, Cordelia testified that the defendant had taken the late Augusta on trips to Mauritius in 2021 and Seychelles in 2022.
According to her, the Seychelles trip was when the defendant first physically abused the deceased.
She said the two stayed about five days in Mauritius and about nine days in Seychelles.
Narrating what she knew of the conflicts between the pair in Seychelles, the witness said the defendant informed her that a quarrel erupted after he caught her daughter scantily dressed and making videos of herself to be posted online.
“Benjamin told me that he broke her phone and then used his phone to do a video, which he sent to me. The cause of the fight was that she was videoing herself, so he snatched the phone and asked why she was videoing herself, but he was the same person who videod her for the job she went to do, and she posted it online”, the witness said.
Defence counsel, Marcel Oru, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, suggested to the witness that the disagreement occurred because the defendant did not like the videos posted online by the deceased, which showed her “virtually naked,” but the witness rejected the claim, insisting that her daughter was in her bikinis for jobs.
The witness also dismissed allegations that during the altercation, her daughter damaged hotel property worth thousands of dollars, saying the defendant did not tell her this, nor did the video sent to her show such destruction.
Augusta’s mother also denied insinuations by the defendant’s counsel that her daughter was violent.
She testified that even though ‘Killaboi’ sent her a stab wound allegedly inflicted on his hand by her daughter, she knew that the wound occurred as a result of him stabbing her repeatedly on the stomach when he killed her.
The court also heard that the defendant spent ₦10m to organise a birthday party for the deceased during which time he bought her expensive gifts, including designer bags, jewellery, and an iPhone.
The witness acknowledged seeing the gifts posted online but added that the defendant collected the iPhone back when he killed her daughter.
She further told the court that before her daughter’s death, the defendant never informed her that the relationship had ended or that the deceased was allegedly involved in prostitution or “hookup.”
“It was after he killed her that he started saying that she had sex tapes with men,” Onuwabhagbe said.
The witness also dismissed the claim of the defendant that her daughter’s former boyfriend, one Marvin, broke up with her because he caught her cheating while she pretended to be in school in Ibadan.
“I know Marvin, but my daughter never told me she dated him, but Benjamin said she did,” she told the court.
When the defence counsel asked, “Do you know that the reason Marvin left her was because while she claimed to be reading in school in Ibadan, he saw her in a hotel with another man?, the witness replied, “I don’t know, but that’s no reason to kill my daughter”.
According to the mother, she had once spoken with her daughter after the defendant accused her of chatting with another man online.
“When I called my daughter, she said she knew it was the defendant who impersonated a man to call her for sex because he never trusted her,” the witness stated.
Asked about financial support allegedly given to her by the defendant, she admitted receiving sums of money from him on a few occasions, including ₦60,000, ₦100,000, ₦15,000 for a recharge card, and another ₦1 million, which she said she immediately transferred to a cooperative account because she was afraid of the large amount.
She said she later sent the ₦1m to an informant in November 2023, who asked to be paid after informing her that the suspect had fled to Sierra Leone, after killing her daughter.
She denied claims that the defendant regularly spent money on her or paid money into some of her bank accounts.
Justice Harrison adjourned the case to Thursday for continuation of cross-examination.
