In a tragic incident, 16-year-old Aisha Suleiman has been accused of killing her ex-boyfriend, Emmanuel Elogie, and four others with poisoned pepper soup. The Edo State Police Command confirmed her arrest after she was rescued from being lynched to death on November 1, 2024. However, four months after the incident, Ms. Suleiman, who was arraigned and later let off the hook, claimed she was not in the Afashio community, Uzairue, Etsako West Local Government Area, where the incident occurred.
Ms. Suleiman stated that since parting ways with her late 19-year-old ex-boyfriend, his father, Elogie Ezekiel, had warned her never to revisit their house. In an interview with Independent Television and Radio (ITV) in Benin City, Ms. Suleiman narrated what transpired. She said, “I didn’t know anything about the pepper soup. I didn’t cook pepper soup that fateful day. It was the deceased’s best friend, Ezenna Japan, who posted my picture on social media, claiming that anyone who found me would be rewarded with N500,000 because I poisoned those who died. My friend took a screenshot and showed it to me. When my friend and I went to the police station to report it, the boy who posted my picture and his friends blocked the road. They wanted to kill me, insisting that I was the one who cooked the pepper soup.”
Ms. Suleiman’s counsel, Ibude Osamwonyi, stated that the State Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) discharged her on the grounds of no case to answer, as the deaths of her ex-boyfriend and his friends were attributed to generator fumes. Mr. Osamwonyi added that he took up Ms. Suleiman’s case after being convinced by friends and human rights activists. “I discovered that the girl (Ms. Suleiman) was framed, which led the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to set her free since the victim died from generator fumes. Because of her age, they couldn’t send her to prison, so she was remanded to a welfare facility. After reviewing the case file, I found nothing linking her to the crime. Even one of the victim’s fathers confirmed that she never came to the house that day,” the lawyer said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Suleiman’s father, Latif Suleiman, and his family announced they would press charges against Ezenna Japan (who allegedly posted on social media that Ms. Suleiman poisoned her ex-boyfriend). Narrating how his daughter was almost killed in the acts of jungle justice by aggrieved residents, Mr. Suleiman said, “When I got there (the place they wanted to burn Aisha), the place was like a market square. The first thing I saw was four litres of petrol—they tried to burn my house and my daughter (Aisha). I saw people who spoke the same language as me, and they told me to stay calm so that I wouldn’t be recognised.”