UTME candidate strangled, corpse dumped in bush

Abuja - Parents of a 20-year-old woman in Ogun have been left distraught after their daughter was strangled and stabbed to death in the Ijebu Igbo LGA of the state. According to a Punch report, the victim, Joan Egemba, left her home in the Sango-Ota area on Thursday to write her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) at the National Open University of Nigeria in Awa Ijbeu later on that day. The exam was not to be, however, as Egemba was abducted at the Ijebu Oru Junction by suspected rapists who proceeded to rape and stab her before dumping her corpse in a bush at the back of a secondary school in Ijebu Igbo. According to the victim's father, Emmanuel Egemba, a guard at the examination centre turned down his daughter's request to spend the night on the premises.

 “On that Thursday, she left home around 12.30pm, but the bus she boarded at Sango to the centre left around 2pm. She called at 5.30pm that she had arrived there, but the security man at the centre did not open the gate for her and others to pass the night on the premises. I told her to find a place in the area till the following day when she would sit for the exam.

 “Around 7pm, I called her again and she said the security man had opened the gate for them. One hour after, I called again but she did not pick her calls. She was supposed to sit for the exam at 6.30am on Friday. I called her around 12pm on Friday, her phone was switched off. As early as 4am on Saturday, I went to the centre to verify whether she sat for the exam or not. I met the security man and he directed me to the JAMB office in Abeokuta.

He denied that he allowed my daughter into the school compound to pass the night. “It was a woman that told us that a girl was kidnapped at Oru Junction and taken towards Ijebu Igbo. We later discovered her corpse on Wednesday, March 9. If the candidates were allowed to sleep inside the school, this incident would not have happened,” he said.

 Emmanuel, a retired Assistant Superintendent of Nigerian Customs, said the loss of Joan was difficult to bear, stating that his wife was too distraught to give commentary on the incident. DSP Muyiwa Adejobi, spokesperson for the Ogun State Police, confirmed that investigations into the incident are still ongoing, while officials are working with Information and Technology experts in order to track down the suspects.