I screamed, “Not again,” when I watched the news last week about a gospel musician who was found carrying his girlfriend’s severed head in a polythene bag. Why are they unable to spare us the suffering and anguish of reading about their heinous conduct of killing women in such a torturous way? How callous can this act get before our government recognizes it as femicide? This crime’s recurrence was not shocking because, according to my research on this kind of domestic violence against women, many women’s pursuit of friendship, love, and marriage has tragically turned into a dead trap where they are killed for the most flimsy of reasons.
When a man kills a woman, he typically accuses the victim. One male academic labeled me a feminist when I delivered a study on the growing prevalence of ritual killing of women in southwest Nigeria as a get-rich-quick syndrome among men. He also accused the female victims of being avaricious and selling their bodies for financial gain. He told young women not to go online dating or stand by the side of the road at night selling their bodies.
This male scholar’s refusal to listen to my research findings, which made it abundantly evident that my findings go beyond his superficial conclusion that women are the reason behind their deaths at the hands of men, and that by halting their waywardness, they will be spared from an early and agonizing death, did surprise me. According to this researcher, the women’s waywardness alone are to blame for the horrific murder known as femicide.
I knew we were in serious trouble as I listened to him criticize my findings. If a researcher with a PhD could think this way, what can we expect from an average person running the streets?
According to police investigations and the confession of alleged gospel singer Temileyin Ajayi, his girlfriend Salome Elejo Adaidu was until her gruesome murder a member of the National Youth Corps, a woman with a promising future, and she wasn’t a random online hookup girl nor was she a woman who was selling her body on the side of the road.
So why was her head cut off ? As if killing a random hookup woman or one a man picks up from the side of the road justifies the killing of women/why she died such a painful death for going to see her lover, spending time with him, and loving him.
Have we forgotten how last year , 23-year-old, Ayomide Adeleye allegedly kill 21-year-old, Christiana Idowu and buried her body . Christiana Idowu 21-year-old undergraduate of Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (Funaab), Ogun State.
Ayomide Adeleye, a 200 Level Philosophy student of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ogun State, confessed to killing Christianah Idowu, a 300 Level student of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB). Just like Eleojo, Christiana’s ‘’crime’’ was visiting Adeleye.
FIJ investigation reveals his confession he made to the 174 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, brought an end to the two-week-long search for the girl who went missing on August 19 , 2024 while on her way from Ita Oluwo to the University of Lagos in Yaba where she was undergoing industrial training.
The 23-year-old denied knowledge of her abduction Idowu and Adeleye knew each other as they both schooled in Ogun State, attended the same church and lived in the same Ita Oluwo community.
“On that Sunday, the girl who normally goes to UNILAG on weekends to return home on Friday left her house as usual,”
“While on her way, it began to rain, so she took cover in Ayomide (Adeleye)’s family’s shop which was just outside his house.
“The boy narrated everything in custody. She only wanted to stay out there for a while and head back to her destination, but he invited her into his house when the rainfall became intense.”
While in his house, Adeleye attempted to take advantage of her but she resisted. He then killed her.
At 8:50 pm on the same day, using Idowu’s phone, he texted her mother via WhatsApp. His text messages read, “Hello Madam, you have such a beautiful daughter. How much are you willing to pay to see her again? We have her in our custody.”
What began as a young lady seeking shelter in a friend’s shop turned into a homicide and then a staged abduction with a ransom.
Using the view once feature on WhatsApp, Adeleye sent the widowed woman two pictures of her daughter. In one of the pictures, FIJ observed he held her head up with his hand. She was already dead when he took the pictures, but the woman and investigators did not know this until his confession on Monday.
After sending this picture, he made a N3 million demand and gave her a 24-hour deadline . adeleye pretended to be a man from northern Nigeria, declined calls and claimed he would accept N400,000 if the money came quickly.On August 21, he claimed he was involved in organ harvesting and, if he got demands, he may kill her and sell her parts for N1.5 million.
“I have nothing to lose, madam. If you don’t settle us, the harvesters will, and they [pay] nothing less than N1.5 million for a healthy body. So, you see I have nothing to lose,” he wrote. “If I collect anything less than N1.5 million from you, that is me helping you.”
Before sending this message, he wrote, “My one and only job is to get people, young and healthy people, majorly between the age 18-40, and your daughter is very well in that age bracket.
“Now, you may ask; why are we requesting for ransom? If there is no demand for organs yet, we reach out to the families of the people we have. If they meet our demands, we set them free.” He added, “If they don’t, we keep them healthy those in charge of harvesting are in need, and by the way, they are always in need.”
When the widow told him she could only raise N350,000 through donations from her church, he suggested she inform her friends in school so they could raise money.
He said, “Don’t you think it will be nice if her school friends know what is happening to her because it occurred to me that no one of them knows what is happening and you don’t think they could be of help to you, madam, help you c
At this time, Adeleye was speaking with Idowu’s other friends and feigning concern over the matter. This, FIJ gathered, was how he established they did not know about the ransom demand.
Upon his arrest, the military found seven phones in Adeleye’s possession. They also found an email address he created to receive a statement of account confirming ransom payment.
To apprehend him, the military obtained a SportyBet account he provided to Idowu’s mother; 9336380839 (Wema Bank), and froze the account after she paid N350,000 into it on August 21.
After experiencing issues accessing the account, Adeleye demanded a statement of account be sent to him via the email address; musaahmed0288@gmail.com.
The email address he created, was a combination of two names; Musa and Ahmed, to match the persona he had donned to execute the con.
Adeleye made the woman send more money to Idowu’s bank account so he could withdraw it. She sent N10,000 and begged him to release her daughter, but he complained that the money was insufficient.
“Just 10k, madam?” he asked. “I thought you said you had more. This woman no serious.”
He then told her he would follow up with the issues preventing him from accessing the N350,000 she paid earlier.
“I will text you when I get it. Until then before I text you,” he told her on August 23. “Have a good weekend.” He then added a Hausa greeting to keep up the act. “Na gode sai ku,” he said. The sentence translates literally as “Thank you, and you”.
On Sunday, the 174 Batallion tracked Idowu’s phone to Adeleye’s residence where they picked him up. He confessed to burying her in a shallow grave in his compound. During interrogation, Adeleye attempted to commit suicide but was restrained, the insider told FIJ.
The government of Nigeria needs to take immediate action to stop the killing of women by their boyfriends, regardless of whether you consider this to be a feminist essay. It is not something to be taken lightly, and calling it a femicide rather than just another murder is one approach to put an end to it. Examining femicide as a comprehensive approach to an intensified form of domestic violence against women, rather than placing blame on the women who are victims, is helpful.
In an effort to prevent femicide, I have researched this atrocity against women and will continue to advocate for its prevention. Temileyin needs to clarify why he cut off her head and where he meant to take it. Women are typically killed in this way as part of a ritual to get rich quick. To learn more, you can read my essay that was published in the journal of https://ajpssi.org/index.php/ajpssi/article/view/686—–. It’s worth noting to read the abstract :
The fight to halt violence against women is still a huge struggle. Unfortunately, ritual related crime of ‘’get rich fast ’’ syndrome has further exacerbated violence against women in Nigeria -which is a particularly extreme kind of violence against women. In order to prepare ritualistic concoctions that can make the offenders wealthy, protect and advance them, ritualists target the breasts, vulva, ovaries, head, and other physical parts of women and girls. Existing research have studied kidnapping for ritual, its consequences for security and prevalence targeting minors, lunatics, the physically impaired and albinos but little attention had focused on the ‘’get rich fast’’ syndrome of ritual killing as a form of gender-based violence against women in Nigeria. The study explained ritual related crime considered a pervasive trend against women by men in south-western Nigeria as an absurd get ‘’rich fast syndrome’’. The study detailed how women fall victims, their relationship with the male perpetrators and the reason for this act against women. Three Nigerian newspapers—the Punch, the Sun, and Vanguard—that covered ritual-related crimes from January 2019 to June 2022 had their content analyzed. These chosen publications are widely read and have their headquarters in Lagos south west Nigeria. The states of Oyo, Lagos, and Ogun were deliberately chosen because they are economically strong, draw young women looking for better opportunities and have a disproportionately high incidence of criminal vices. A total of 1008 publications were analysed during the period under review . The results reveal that 54 men with just one woman who acted as an accomplice to her husband was involved in the ritual related killing of women. This shows that males are the ones who commit crimes against women related to rituals, therefore making it gender based violence against women.
The result also shows that women are more likely than men to be victims of crimes associated to rituals, reasons for this include women not being physically strong like the men, these women trusted their male partners who use romance, her quest for marriage as a bait to lure and extract her bodily parts. The result also shows that social –cultural beliefs as well as patriarchy which see women as less than men and next in line after slaves to be used for ritual purposes are also contributing factors to the slaying of women for ritualistic get rich fast money. Also, the result shows that another reason for ritualistic men targeting women is the low status of women where her reproductive parts like her breast, vulva and other parts are deemed portend for get rich fast concoctions to be prepared by herbalist.
Discussions on ritual crimes are generally broad, but women are being targeted for their body parts by desperate men who, with the help of ritual doctors, prepare these severed female parts for quick money rituals. Ritual-related crime against women demands immediate attention. Thus, in order to stop this terrible trend, the government must apply a gender lens to address ritual-related crime and use all available tools to ensure that it is completely removed from society. Addressing crime will also address gender-exacerbated violence against women
