A victim of suspected armed robbers arrested by Oyo State Police Command, Alhaji Wahab Olatokunbo (surname withheld), has narrated the experiences of his family members in the hands of hoodlums whom he said invaded his home, killed his wife by stabbing and almost ended his own life too through several knife stabs and machete cuts. He also spoke of how they almost raped his wife’s younger sisters who he regarded as his children, which awakened him from almost an unconscious state to seek help, and which sent the criminals away from achieving their lustful desire.
Saturday Tribune wrote about the arrest of Matthew, Tobi and Ibrahim arrested by the operatives of Violent Crime Response Unit (VCRU), following their invasion of Alhaji Wahab’s house at Wofun, Olodo area in Ibadan, and other victims at Moniya area. The Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Olayinka Ayanlade, said that the suspects allegedly killed Mrs Rukayat, the wife of Alhaji Wahab, stabbed the husband severally, attempted rape on members of the family, and carted away foreign currency, phones and other valuables. One of the suspects, Matthew, admitted to killing the woman through stabbing in an interview.
Alhaji Olatokunbo, who had his left hand and right knee bandaged, limped to a seat to speak with Saturday Tribune, looking so traumatised. His shirt unbuttoned, a vertical gash, which was said to be the wound of the surgery he had at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, told the story of the attack by the suspects.
The Ibadan indigene, who is a travel consultant and also trades in vehicles, said: ‘On August 4, 2026, I was in my residence with my wife, two biological children and two sisters-in-law who have been staying with us since they were young and who I regard as my children also. At about 3a.m., the opening of the mosquito net door of my room woke me up. I quickly got up to check who it was. I saw my wife in front, with two men, who I later knew as Matthew and Tobi, following her. They held cutlasses, knives and a pestle. Before then, my wife had stood up to check when she heard noise from the kitchen. She thought something fell, only to discover it was the armed robbers who had broken the kitchen window, as she met them in the living room.
‘The armed robbers led my wife into my room. I quickly rose from the bed and started pleading: ‘please, please,’ but one of them, Matthew, raised the pestle he held, ready to strike it on my head. I quickly used my left hand to block the pestle. He tried it second time and in my attempt to block it again, my hand broke. Matthew went into the room with my wife while he instructed another gang member, whom I believe was Tobi: ‘stab him, stab him fatally’ (gun, gun pa). I started pleading with them not to kill me, but Matthew insisted.
‘Tobi started stabbing me, and I was trying to stop him, dragging the knife with him. My wife knelt and started begging them not to kill me, but from my back, Matthew struck my head with a machete. Blood started spurting from the deep cut. He moved in front of me and struck my head with the cutlass again, saying ‘ayé e maa bàjé ni. Sèbí o rò pé o lè bá wa fàá ni?’ (you are doomed, you think you can drag issues with us?) Again, he struck me on the thigh towards my private part with the cutlass. I became powerless. Tobi continued stabbing me and he was joined by Matthew who stabbed me by the left side, close to my heart. My intestines poured out. He also hit my right knee with the pestle he held.
‘When they noticed I was no longer moving, Matthew turned to my wife and stabbed her. When I no longer heard her voice, I thought it was the shock. She slumped to the ground. Then, Matthew went for the phones belonging to me and my wife. He went to my wardrobe and took the $400 he found there. They also went for two laptops but couldn’t take them away eventually. They also took my car key. They went away with seven phones.’
Wahab continued: ‘After that, Matthew went to the children’s room and told them: ‘we have killed your father. Don’t allow your lives to be wasted.’ He asked my sisters-in-law for their phones. I was already blinded by my own blood but peeped to identify Tobi in case I survive. Matthew kept returning to kick me to know if I had died. The next thing was that Matthew ordered one of my sisters-in-law to pull off her dress as he wanted to have sex with her. She replied him that she was menstruating, and he confirmed it, disclosing that he watched her from the bathroom window when she had a bath and changed the sanitary pad she previously used to a fresh one. Tobi ordered her back into a room to lie down. Matthew removed his boxers and became naked from waist down. Tobi did the same, aiming at the second sister.
‘At that time, in my state, I became agitated because of their intentions. My in-laws and children had already locked themselves in a room, but the armed robbers repeatedly kicked it until it forcefully opened. They shared my sisters-in-law between themselves. When I noticed that they were in the room, I forced myself up, packed my intestines in my hand with blood pouring, opened a sliding door and crept out of the kitchen after unlocking it. I staggered outside, hitting my parked vehicle when stumbling in movement. As I was within my compound, I started shouting ‘armed robbers, armed robbers’ to alert neighbours. I heard Matthew as he hissed loudly, because at that time, he had ripped off the girl’s dress and she later told us that he was about putting his mouth to her breast when I shouted. Tobi had also slapped the other sister-in-law when she was trying to protect my teenage daughter. But as he drew her to himself, he heard the alarm I raised.
‘Tobi rushed out, but I had opened the small gate. Fortunately, we forgot to padlock it. I went to my neighbour’s house, and he got up with a cutlass, but couldn’t come out as they could not get the key to his own gate. I went back to my gate entrance and saw Tobi, followed by Matthew. They forgot a cross bag they brought. They also left their boxers and shoes on the platform they used in scaling my house fence. Aside the knives and cutlasses they brought, they also to a knife from our kitchen.’
With tears welling up in his eyes, Alhaji Wahab said: ‘They killed my wife. She died on the spot. My children later told me that when I came out and raised the alarm, they thought: ‘oh! Daddy has killed us. These criminals would kill us in anger.’ As the armed robbers escaped, the children told me that they rushed to my room and saw their mother’s body at the toilet’s doorway. She was gasping. She stopped breathing in their arms as they held her. Matthew stabbed her three times on the left side of the chest. There was so much blood from me and her on the room floor. They targeted the hearts of both of us. And my wife was pleading with him not to kill me. I initially told people to help rush my wife to the hospital, believing she was in shock. I didn’t know I would survive the attack. It was just God.’
Alhaji Wahab said that when he was also taken for medical attention, he was rejected by three hospitals before he was given first aid at a fourth one. ‘The doctor sutured my head and other places, but couldn’t touch the spot from where my intestines poured out. I had internal bleeding as blood was pouring in and out of my stomach. There was too much blood loss. My PCV (packed cell volume) went as low as 21 percent.
‘From there, I was referred to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan. Doctors there operated me between the late hours of August 4 into the following day. I was told that I had a 50-50 chance of survival. They also told me that if they discover during the operation that the stabbing affected my large intestine, they would do colostomy and I would be defecating from it between six months and a year. They had to rip my stomach open to clean congealed blood inside, with my intestines on one side.
‘The doctors started cleaning the intestines of the blood. I was told that the knife pierced my spine and they had to work on that too. They told me to quickly go to hospital whenever I have a headache, saying it could be as a result of the spine injury because it is what protects the spinal cord. I have been prescribed three injections every year.’
He said that if the armed robbers had asked for the family belongings, they would have been given. ‘I would have transferred money to them if they had demanded for it. They should have left my wife alone,’ Wahab said, sobbing uncontrollably.
Alhaji Wahab’s 19-year-old second daughter, a student of Kwara State University, also recounted how she and her siblings witnessed the horrific attack on their family, saying she was working on her computer when she first heard a voice outside their home. ‘My sister and I were inside the room when we heard someone talking, but we thought the person was outside our compound because there is a place close to us where sachet alcohol is sold. My sister was scared and slept, but I continued working on my system,’ she told Saturday Tribune.
She said she eventually went to sleep after remembering reports that a motorcyclist had been killed on a nearby field. ‘A few hours later, my father’s voice, crying, ‘Ah! E joo! E joo! (please, please) Ah!’ woke me up. My sister and I rushed to our two aunties, and we all went to our dad. We met the armed robbers stabbing him, with blood on the floor. My mother gestured to us to go back. She was still alive at that time. I knelt down because I couldn’t leave. I am closer to my dad, so watching him like that was painful. I was begging them,’ she said.
According to her, she and her relatives later retreated into a room and locked the door, but the attackers forced their way in after kicking it about five times. ‘As they wanted to enter, I tried to drag my sister with me, but she was rooted to a spot, so I ran into the toilet and locked the door,’ she said, adding that the attackers demanded their phones, money and the password to her father’s phones. ‘I heard one of them telling my sister, ‘We have killed your father. Don’t allow him to waste your lives too.”
The teenager said she became more terrified when the attackers began checking the toilets and asked her aunt about the whereabouts of the fourth girl. ‘That made me know that they knew the number of people in the house. I hid close to our WC, which was in darkness, and I was breathing fast. As they opened my aunt’s toilet door, I unlocked mine at the same time so they would not hear the sound,’ she said.
She said the attackers eventually left after hearing her father’s voice again. ‘The next thing I heard was, ‘Ole! Ole!’ (thief, thief!) It was my dad’s voice. One of the armed robbers hissed and they left. Immediately they left, I was already outside to rescue my parents. I saw them as they were going, but I could not do anything. I rushed out to look for my dad, but I could not find him outside. When I went back inside, I saw my mum on the floor, dead. She had been stabbed in three places – at the back and on the upper and lower parts of her left breast,’ she said.
Expressing her desire for justice, the 19-year-old called for the death penalty for the suspects, alleging that the attackers also attempted to rape her aunties. ‘These criminals should be killed because they are not worthy to be among the living. If allowed to live, they might do it to some other people. They almost raped my aunties, but God intervened in our matter. That is the reason they did not succeed,’ she said.