Revenue Collector Kills Teenage Kinsman To Avoid Paying N100, 000 Loan

 

IGP, Akali Baba

A community revenue collector, Ifeanyi Ezinwa Paul, 29, has told the police that he killed his 19-year-old kinsman, Victor Ebuka, in order to avoid paying the N100, 000 loan he borrowed from the boy. 

Rather than pay his debt, Paul lured Ebuka into a bush in Umuleri in Anambra State and attempted to stab him to death. The teenager engaged Paul in a scuffle, but he was overpowered and strangled to death by Paul. During the scuffle, the knife nicked Paul, causing him to bleed. Seeing the wound, Paul came up with a devious plan. He ran straight to the king’s palace, claiming that robbers attacked him.

However, when he was finally arrested for murder, the suspect blamed his action on greed and devil. Paul, who is married with three children, dropped out of secondary school after his father died. He learnt driving and soon became a commercial bus driver. He said: “Two years ago, my kinsmen invited me to come and work for the community. My duty was to serve as a revenue collector for the elderly men in the community. ‘‘We have market days, and everyone was expected to drop a certain amount of money. It was going well, but I became greedy and spent part of the money I had collected on behalf of the community.

‘‘I knew I would lose my job if anyone noticed the shortage. It was out of desperation that I approached Ebuka, who owns a provision store in our village. He was my relative and we are from the same kindred in Umuleri.” Paul explained that sometimes in December 2020, he borrowed N100, 000 from Ebuka, with a promise to refund by January. He said that when it was January 10, which was the deadline, he couldn’t meet up. Following the threats by the decease to report him to the king, he hashed on the plan to exterminate him. According to him, he lured him to one of the bushes in the technical school at Aguleri area. In the process of trying to kill him that scuffled occurred which resulted in Paul be injured but he finally overcome his victim and strangled him to death. Thereafter, he went to the palace to report to the king that he was attacked by robbers and was taken to the hospital for treatment. However, the corpse of his victim was discovered the next day, leading to his arrest by the police. ‘‘I maintained that we were attacked, and that I narrowly escaped. When my wife and family members visited, I insisted that I was innocent,’’ he said when he was interrogated. ‘‘After I was moved to IRT, I had no choice than to confess. I cannot explain the devil that entered my head. I don’t know what to tell family and kindred. They should all forgive me. What happened was the handiwork of the devil,” he added. Police investigators con-firmed the confession of Paul on how he attacked and killed Ebuka. After his arrest, Ebuka’s father was also said to have written a petition to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), demanding thorough investigation. The IGP instructed IRT, headed by a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Abba Kyari, to investigate the matter. It was gathered that after operatives pointed out the discrepancies in his narrative to him, Paul carved in and confessed to the crime.