Edo CP Chris Ezike

By Jethro Ibileke/Benin.

Benin City, capital of Edo state, was again thrown into another tragic mood on Friday when a 23-year-old man identified as Solomon Bakoma, slaughtered his grandmother and inflicted deep machete cuts on his aunt, over alleged deprivation of rent collection from his late mother’s building.

The incident occurred at 13, Igubor Street, off Technical College Road, Benin. The daughter of the 55-year-old victim, identified as Mrs. Janet Ogbeifun, was said to have had Solomon for a Togolese but later died in Morocco on her way to Europe in search of greener pasture.

It was gathered that Solomon who has a sister in Togo was brought to Benin City in September last year by his paternal uncle.

One of the victim’s grandchildren, 12-year-old Hassan Stephen, who narrated how the incident happened to journalists in Benin, said he was in the house with his grandmother preparing for school about 7:30 am when his cousin, Solomon, cut his grandmother’s head with a sharp cutlass!

In her own account, Joy Frank, 17, said Solomon had severally threatened to kill her grandmother for not allowing him to collect rent from the tenants occupying three flats in the four flats built by his late mother.

She alleged further that he had last Wednesday threatened to kill her grandmother, a threat that prompted the woman to invite her other children to the house.

She further revealed that her cousin Solomon took time to sharpen the cutlass on Thursday evening under the guise of clearing grasses with it the following day.

She said: “I heard my grandmother scream once. When I rushed to the sitting room, I saw Solomon cutting my grandmother with cutlass. He cut her in the head and neck, turned to my mother and was about to cut her when I held his hand, but she cut her in the leg.”

Learning of the development, angry neighbours spontaneously allegedly attacked the boy and beat him to a comma.

A blood-stained sofa and the paved floor of the house were still visible when journalists visited the scene.

Policemen operatives from Okhoro and Ugbowo police divisions reportedly took the corpse of the victim and the injured person away.

Edo State Police Command’s spokesman, DSP Stanley Osifo, who confirmed the incident, said the suspect was mobbed and is in critical condition in a hospital. ,