The family of 31-year-old Maria Onyeche Ali, who was reportedly killed on Monday by her ex-fiancé, one Benedict Ugwuoke, for leaving him for another man after ten years of relationship, has demanded justice.
The incident happened at Karu, Abuja where Ben is living.
It was gathered that Ben, as he is fondly called, had dated Maria for ten years without officially marrying her despite having a child together, a seven-year-old girl.
It was gathered that trouble started when Maria decided to quit the relationship after she found another lover, who wanted to marry her and had fixed December to commence marital rites.
According to the family members, Ben allegedly threatened to kill his ex-lover’s new man or both of them if she didn’t leave him.
To make his threat real, on Sunday, May 23, 2022, Ben allegedly stormed her apartment at House 10 Fatima Gold Estate, Maraba, Abuja around 5 pm when her new lover visited and demanded that she should discharge him.
“She refused and did not allow him inside. They were reportedly talking outside the house before he lured her into his car for further discussion. As soon as they got inside the car, Ben locked the doors and allegedly threatened her with a gun, saying he would kill her if she refused to discharge the new lover.
“After inflicting mental trauma, he left her. The next day, Monday 24, he returned to complete what he started,” Maria’s elder sister, Cecilia said.
She said that Benedict later called her to come to the Nigeria Customs Service hospital in Karu around 8:30 pm on Monday, to see the dead body of her sister.
She alleged that despite not living together, Ben still come to her apartment to assault her on several occasions to the extent that a week after she gave birth, he raped her.
Chronologically Cecilia narrated the unfortunate incident, thus: “Maria is my younger sister and she has been in a relationship with one Benedict Ugwuoke for the past ten years and they had a child together. The child is seven years old now and she is with my mother. My sister is 31 years old. They are not living together as my sister rented an apartment at Fatima Gold Estate Maraba, where she was living before this unfortunate incident.
“So many times, my sister would call me or she would come to our house with bruises, sometimes with a swollen face. When you asked her, she would say it was Ben that did it to her.
Unfortunately, every time we wanted to take him up, my sister would say that we should leave him. It continued for a long time and when she gave birth, he raped her a week after. Recently my sister told him that she was quitting the relationship since he was not ready to marry her.
“Since the notification, he started threatening her to such an extent that he came to the apartment to ask her to discharge someone who wanted to marry her and had been introduced to family members.”
Continuing, Cecilia said, “On Monday, around 8 pm, Ben called asking me to meet him at Nigeria Customs Service hospital in Karu immediately. I was trying to ask what was the matter but he insisted I should come immediately. So, everyone in the house said let’s go there because since afternoon we had been calling my sister but she had not been answering.
“Family members including her friends and fiancée had called several times and some had to come to our house to check what was going on. Everyone at this point was nervous.”
She noted that her fiancée, Popoola Abiola Victor, had called her to find out if Maria was in her house.
“We were praying when Ben’s call came. I rushed to the hospital with her fiancée, Victor, only to see my sister lying down in the hospital bed. Immediately, I called my elder brother who immediately came.
“When I asked Ben what happened to her, he said he didn’t know. When we enquired from the doctor on duty, he told us that someone (Ben) brought her to the hospital in the afternoon.
“He (doctor) also said that the person dropped a wrong phone number with the hospital and left and that when the hospital wanted to refer her to a bigger hospital, they could not see the person; and also could not reach anyone on the number the person had provided. The phone number he dropped was the wrong one. At this point, my brother invited the police who took him to the Karu Police Station to give a statement on what happened to her,” she narrated
Continuing, Cecilia said that Ben had seized her sister’s phones so that nobody could access her until she died.
She said, “He collected all her phones and nobody was able to reach her. When my son came, he now gave him Maria’s phone and wristwatch.
“He didn’t agree that he hit my sister when we were at the hospital but when we got to the police station, he told the police that when she came to his house and they were talking, he was angry and hit her and she started vomiting.”
She added, “Ben further told the police that my sister came to his house around 1pm and that she was only complaining of a headache and he mixed a malt drink with milk and gave her. He also said he gave her paracetamol and thereafter she was stable for a while before suddenly, she started vomiting and he now rushed her to the hospital.
“He also told the police in his statement that she died of High Blood Pressure (BP).”
Cecilia further stated that when he was asked why he didn’t call any of her family members, he said he did not think of it.
“On why he took her phone and didn’t want anyone to reach her, he said that the phone was on a seat where she was sitting in his house before he rushed her to the hospital and that he left it in the house,” she said.
When Cecilia was asked what the police had done so far, she said, “Karu police station has transferred the case file to FCT SCID for further investigation. They visited Ben’s house on Tuesday, the room had been cleaned so the police were able to see traces of any vomit.”
She maintained that her sister needs justice, adding, “He is the one who killed my sister because when we went to his house with the police, someone had cleaned the house. They had mopped the house before we got there but we have gotten the rag used in cleaning her vomit and other evidence.”
Victor, Maria’s lover, also shared Cecilia’s account of the event, adding that Ben had threatened to kill him if he didn’t leave her.
He said Ben always said she was his wife.
Meanwhile, efforts to get a reaction from the FCT Police Command were unsuccessful as the spokesperson, Josephine Adeh, did not answer her calls or reply to text messages sent to her.
