How I became suspicious that all was not well with Ataga – Witness

By Onyinyechi Ugwoke

At the resumed trial of Chidinma Ojukwu on Monday 14th February 2022, a witness, Rahman Obiora Stanley, who is also a partner at Super Network Limited, the parent company of Super TV, told Justice Yetunde Adesanya, at a Lagos High Court sitting in Tafawa Balewa Square Annex, that he was working on a task for which he was to brief the deceased before their Executive meeting on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, when he called the deceased to inform him that the task came out positive, something that would relieve some of his work pressure, the late Ataga was not answering his phone and did not return his call.

Mr Rahman said that, he later received a WhatsApp message from the deceased in which he stated, “I saw your missed call, I took some drugs that have made me sleeping.”

He said, the English grammar was suspicious and could not have come from the late Ataga, who speaks English fluently.

He stated that, he sent him a screenshot of the billing system in the Super TV app to see that it was working but his response was, “Ok, Great”

That’s when he realised something wasn’t right because the deceased would have called him as soon as he saw the messages, as that was the only news he wanted to hear.

Chidinma Ojukwu, a 300-level Mass Communication student of the University of Lagos, and two others are on trial over Mr Ataga’s murder.

The Search

Rahman said, he learned from the late Ataga’s cook that Michael had left his house on Banana Island since Sunday. “I was surprised because when we last spoke on Friday, he agreed to come in on Monday to work on the project with me.”

“He decided to raise an alarm when Michael, who was supposed to leave Victoria Island for Abuja to celebrate his 50th birthday with his family, failed to appear. “Bros, where are you? I’m worried, my blood pressure is rising,” Mr Rahman said that was his last WhatsApp message, he sent to the deceased on June 16 at 10:30 a.m. The message was read, but no response was received.

He said, he received a call from Mr Ataga’s wife, Brenda on the 17th of June, 2021, his birthday, she asked, “Rahman, where is Usifo?” I had to tell her the truth, that I had been looking for Usifo since Tuesday, and the wife was upset that I didn’t make complain. I explained everything to her, and she said, she would call back.

She called a few minutes later to report that Michael’s phone had been traced to UNILAG Guest House. I drove to UNILAG and called some friends that Brenda had informed me that Michael’s phone was traced to UNILAG. Brenda also informed me that a police team would meet me at UNILAG to conduct the search together. While conducting the search at UNILAG, the police joined me, and we communicated with Brenda because she was providing the GPS for Michael’s phone.

He said, he received a call from Access bank, he had asked the bank to help trace Mr Ataga’s transactions. The banker said, Mr Ataga made a transaction on Sunday to an Airbnb apartment (the short let apartment) and then on Monday to one Chidinma Ojukwu Adaora of Sterling Bank. However, Rahman said, he learnt of Mr Ataga’s demise from Mrs Ataga through the contact of the Airbnb apartment, he had gotten from the bank. And on June 23, he got a call from the police that Ms Ojukwu had been arrested with the recovery of the deceased’s phone and laptop.

Describing the state of Michael Usifo Ataga’s corpse, Rahman said, his friend was killed like a chicken. “I got to the mortuary and I saw Michael’s body, he was killed like a chicken. I saw a very deep cut at the back of his neck, at the two sides. From the back of his head to the neck. As if they were going to perform a surgery. Then I saw 7 multiple stabs wounds on his body. Micheal was tied up. You can see the shape of the rope on his body, both hands and legs because he was a fair person.”

“The wickedness for me is that, the day I was with Michael’s corpse, they were still taking money from his account.”

When asked by the Deputy Director of Public Prosecution counsel, Mrs A.O. Oluwafemi, if anything else was discovered while tracing the deceased’s account, he replied, “there was a payment to a restaurant in Lekki on Sunday 13th June, 2021 at Angle villa restaurant. I shared the information to Michael’s friends and they proceeded to the restaurant to confirm if Michael’s was there before his death. They confirmed he was there and we requested a CCTV footage. The police took the CCTV footage and I was surprised to see the footage all over the social media space.”

Onwuka Egwu, the defence counsel to Ms. Ojukwu, asked Rahman if the fact that he was unaware of the late Ataga’s affair with Ms. Ojukwu meant that he was secretive. Rahman replied, “No, I just didn’t bother to find out.”

Justice Yetunde Adesanya adjourned the case to February 17th, 2022

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