Featured
I didn’t attempt to kill my white friend because of $40,000 – Suspect
By OKOSUN DENNIS
Orabe Philip, 36, and resident of No: 5 Adeniyi Asiru Street, Park View, Off Ijede road, Ikorodu cannot decipher what overcame him to have attempted to kill his American boss and friend with a pestle in his house.
Although he confessed it was not the lure of money that led him into the heinous crime, but couldn’t categorically say what prompted him. What he could tell National Daily was for the government should forgive his atrocities against his American friend.
“Actually, Robert Bob Wheelers, (victim) has been helping me. I was once his driver before we became very close and he asked me to stay in his house when he was working with one company then at Ikoyi called HH.
“He later relocated to Pakistan as a University lecturer. Every time he visited the country, he stays in my house.
“When he came last time, he promised to pay me $100 every day for five days he would spend. He only spent one day when I hit him with pestle while he was drinking in my room.
The Benue state born Orabe added that even though he needed money to take care of his pregnant wife and other family demands, some forces compelled him to have attempted to kill Bob.
But the police that has apprehended the suspect, said he committed the act and fled, noting that Orabe has only fabricated stories to make it sweet and earn public sympathy.
Speaking to National Daily in his office, the Zonal Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos said the suspect actually wanted to defraud the white man after he had promised to pay into his account $40,000 about N14.6m.
“His intention was to run away with the money and other valuables with the man, she narrated.
She further explained that following the attack, “operatives of the Zonal Intervention Squad (ZIS) Ikorodu were mandated to track down the suspect but their efforts paid off on the 8th September, 2017 and arrested him at Ikoyi area of Lagos.
Speaking to National Daily, Orabe explained that the victim, Robert Bob Wheelers, an
American had promised to transfer forty thousand US dollars ($40,000) to his account but refused to do so.
Having refused, the suspect was said to have used force to extract the money from him. He was also influenced by his mother in law and a spiritualist in a white garment church that gave him charms to use against the white man.
It was learnt that when the charms failed, the suspect was said to have resorted to crude method to get the money from the man by attacking him the first day he had spent in his house.
SP Badmos added that the Commander, Zone 2, AIG Adamu Ibrahim has directed the suspect to be charged to court.