Shocking details have emerged on how Miss. Oluwatosin Ashinwo, a Customer Care Officer with mobile telecommunication giant, MTN Nigeria, in Ilorin, Kwara State, was stabbed to death by her lover, after she allegedly ditched her upon discovering that he was married with two kids. The suspect, identified simply as engineer David, a staff of a private university also in Ilorin, also inflicted serious injuries on Tosin”s mother, Mrs. Ashinwo during a bloody encounter with the young lady, which culminated in her death.
Trouble started when Tosin, a 2008 Business Administration graduate of the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), who had been in the employment of MTN since September 2009, returned to her house on the fateful day, following a phone call from David. It was gathered that David, a married man, had found Tosin’s decision to quit the relationship and settle down with another man unacceptable, having discovered that he had no future with the suspect.
It was gathered that Tosin’s mother, who was aware of the relationship, had actually come to Ilorin to mediate between her daughter and the lover. The ‘engineer’ was said to have dashed to the kitchen at the heat of their argument and allegedly brought out a knife with which he attacked the two women. “When he was stabbing her, she was shouting ‘Don’t kill me Engineer David. Don’t kill me, Engineer David.
You already have two kids,’ one of the neighbours said. The neighbour argued that the man must have become angry that Tosin would still refuse his marriage intention after he had allegedly invested so much on her. Unconfirmed reports said he actually bought the car Tosin drove until her death, but the deceased was also described as a very hardworking lady who used to sell cloths in her spare time. Tosin’s mother was said to have managed to crawl towards the door while still raising alarm for help after their attacker had left the house. “She showed people the picture of the man and asked them to help but it was too late because he had driven away.” A nurse who saw her at the UITH said the mother was badly cut by her daughter’s lover.
“She only survived by miracle,” the nurse told our reporter. Just as well, sources who saw the corpse of the late Tosin claimed she had no chance of survival going by the way she was stabbed. It was gathered that Tosin was transferred from the Kaduna office of the telecoms company last December, following a restructuring of staff at the office. “She resumed here in Ilorin last December,” a source familiar with her story told our reporter. But like several others who spoke on the incident, she asked not to be named in public because of fears about police inquiries. Sources said that a young man actually reported the matter to the police on the day of the incident, after he had made spirited efforts to open the gate leading to the deceased’s premises and efforts to get neighbours to help failed.
The teenager, whose house sits next to the deceased’s apartment, was said to have overheard the shouts for help coming from Tosin’s mother and when he opened the window and saw what was happening ran to the main entrance of the building but met the gate locked. He then reportedly went to the next building but there was nobody at home. By the time he returned to Tosin’s gate, he reportedly saw the man already coming out, with bloodstain on his legs. Another neighbour, who saw the man but was ignorant of what happened in the building, claimed she saw him cleaning the blood stains from his legs before entering his Toyota Camry car to drive away.
The young man who had witnessed part of the encounter was overtaken by fright that he could not raise the alarm, but ran straight to the police station, a distance of about one and half kilometres from the house. “He didn’t even take a bike which would have made the journey faster and by the time he came back, of course, the man had left,” the neighbour said. Spokesman for the Kwara State Police Command, Mr. Ajayi Okasanmi confirmed the incident and said that the command was already on the trail of the suspect.
David’s mien A source within the neighbourhood confirmed that they had known both the ‘Engineer ‘and Tosin for some time and that she actually used to drive his car to her office once in a while. But neighbours said they had no interactions with the suspect because each time he came around, his tough look and domineering attitude scared people from him. “He would never open his mouth to greet you,” one neighbour said, adding: “I remember there was a young girl that Tosin used to relate with by sending her on errands but one day this man came and saw them and asked her to send the girl away.”
Another source, who was also close to the deceased, claimed that there was a time Tosin, went to stay with a relative a few kilometres away from her residence only for the ‘Engineer” to call her and asked where she was. The source said: “He asked, ‘where are you coming from?’ and she said, ‘I was with my brother. He then asked ‘What were you doing there?’ She said resting. He asked again are you lying down or what and that one replied; how you expect me to rest if not by lying down. He just told her to come out immediately and you won’t believe it, Tosin just packed her things and headed to where the man was.”
