Paul Odama, the newly deployed commissioner of police, Kwara State Command, may have unraveled Nigeria’s own version of ‘Hannibal Lecter’ after he reopened an unresolved case involving a suspected missing person.
The development afterwards led to a shocking discovery of decomposing bodies of women, one of them, the quarry, declared missing by her husband, and another one yet to be identified but buried in the suspect’s office in the state government-owned General Hospital, Kaiama, Kwara State.
Lecter, a Hollywood character in a three part movie and novel series by Thomas Hardy, is renowned for being a psychotic but brilliant psychologist with a serial killer and cannibalistic instinct.
The suspected killer in this instance, Adio Adeyemi Adebowale, is a medical doctor at the said general hospital, Kaiama.
Preliminary details gathered from the killer’s office suggests however that there might have been other victims, possibly women, going by habiliments, tokens or ‘trophies’ seen at the crime scene.
There are also suggestions that his victims are mostly women which also include his former girlfriend killed in Ilorin before absconding.
Adebowale had surfaced in Benin where he killed a commercial driver he hired and made away with his Toyota Camry car.
Upon being alerted to the killing, the Edo police put out an all point bulletin, APB, normally used to alert law enforcement agencies on a missing suspect over a wide Area.
It was the Osun State Police that caught him while he was trying to connect with Ogbomoso from Osogbo and handed back to Edo police.
But the suspect’s serial killing instinct with special preference for women was revealed after the Kwara State CP requested to see missing persons cases in the state upon assumption of duties as new helmsman in the police command.
While going through some of the said case files, a particular case struck the CP as odd.
It was the case of one missing lady by the name Nofisat Halidu, in Kaiama, Kaiama, a local government area in the state, dated November 21, 2021, almost a year ago.
Having read up on overlapping cases involving his new command, he was struck by the Edo Police command’s report on the confessions of Adebowale, particularly where he confessed to killing one Ifeoluwa, his girlfriend, who was declared missing in Tanke area of Ilorin sometime in 2021 and her dead body later discovered in a bush in Alapa area of Ilorin where he dumped it.
Other details that spooked the CP was that the suspect was the chief medical director of Kaiama general hospital, a place, the newspaper learnt, Haladu’s last known whereabouts terminated.
On a haunch, the CP ordered an investigative team to investigate the general hospital where the suspect’s office was forced open.
After thorough search, the experienced operatives saw suspicious fresh looking facelifts in the office that included freshly cemented floor tiles.
The police broke the tiles and dug under where they were met with the gory sight of one of the decomposing bodies of a woman.
She was buried in a shallow grave right in the office.
Further search of the office led to the opening of a trash can where another body of a lady later identified as the earlier reported missing Nofisat Halidu was found.
She was identified by the husband, Mr Halidu, and other members of the community who were present at the scene at the time of the search.
But other worrisome details were seen at the crime scene. These were two telephone handsets; it is not yet clear who owns them. Both phones were found in a hand bag; Two female handbags, a female wig, a veil and a female underpants, were also discovered.
What appears to be textbook signs of serial killing play, the worry for some observers is that these items might suggest that there are other victims.
But explaining to newsmen via a press release, Ajayi Okasanmi, spokesman for the policecommand, saidthatinvestigations are still on the matter.
“In furtherance of the investigation, the Kwara CP had contacted the Edo State Police Command, requesting for the release of the suspect to the Kwara State Police Command to answer some questions regarding the discoveries in his office,” he said.
