- I made N31m from the deal, says Islamic cleric
Three months ago, Nigerians were stunned speechless when a woman, later identified as Mrs. Akinloye Oluwatoyin, allegedly jumped off the Third Mainland Bridge, into the Lagoon over an alleged discovery of her nude pictures and that of her lover on the internet.
Rumour was rife that she leapt to her death because she couldn’t face her husband after her torrid affair was discovered via the pictures.
The alleged affair and subsequent ‘suicide’ sparked tense controversy on social media, creating two divides. One faction cursed the unknown lover, Otunba Femi Adesanya, who it was believed shared the pictures on the social media, the other faction railed against Oluwatoyin for violating her wedding vows.
Incidentally, how the supposed death of Oluwatoyin spread was unknown back then, but her ‘corpse’ was never retrieved and nobody could state for a fact that she was seen leaping to her death.
The whole drama started on that fateful June 10, when Toyin was alleged to have jumped from the University of Lagos, Akoka, end of the bridge into the Lagoon.
She was further claimed to have parked a Ford SUV before she committed suicide. It was later discovered that the parked Ford SUV was not hers, neither was she ever at the bridge, let alone to have taken a fatal leap.
Toyin, as she is fondly called by friends, was said to have been alerted by friends about the social media stunt, leading to her taking to her Facebook wall to tell friends and family in Nigeria and US, where she is a businesswoman, dealing in clothes, that she was hale and hearty. Before Toyin spoke, however, an unknown person, still fueling the furnace, ignited another rumour, insisting the businesswoman was swindled N10 million by her supposed lover and she got him arrested.
The lover, piqued by her move after all the intimacies they had shared, allegedly flung her like raw fish to the sharks of social media to feast on by sharing her alleged nude pictures.
Apparently determined to ruin her reputation, Adesanya shared semi nude pictures of himself, but complete nude pictures of Toyin. He was alleged to have shared it to prove to an unconcerned world that they were lovers and that the money was given in the spirit of love and romance.
Today, however, Toyin has finally decided to speak out, insisting that everything on social media was just one big pack of lies cooked and served to ensure she stopped seeking justice after a group of fraudsters, including a female friend, an Islamic cleric and Adesanya defrauded her N75 million.
She said: “I thought Adesanya was a genuine businessman, who was into selling of fuel at different filling stations. He was also the person who circulated the story that I jumped off the Third Mainland Bridge into the Lagoon over infidelity. Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) tried to caution him, but he wouldn’t listen. He was desperate to blackmail and stop me from pursuing the case.”
Toyin, who is married to Tunde, has three children for him and they all reside in US.
Part of the lies told against Toyin during the damaging rumour was that following her alleged affair, her husband conducted a DNA test on their children and discovered that he was not the biological father of the three children. What most Nigerians didn’t know is that Toyin, in spite of all the insults hitting her from all directions, refused to back down in her quest for justice.
She petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, who detailed his Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT) led by a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Abba Kyari, to investigate the case.
According to a police source, investigations showed that Toyin was a victim of fraud, “who, fell prey to a notorious fraud syndicate, based in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, with international connections.”
The source further said: “The victim, known as Toyin Texas, lost a total of N75m between March 2017 and January 2018.
This was the period she fell prey to the syndicate’s antics. Members of the syndicate went to publish her supposed nude pictures with a member of the syndicate on internet. This was done in a bid to prevent her from instituting a case against them.”
Our correspondent gathered that on July 2018, Toyin wrote a petition to Idris, asking him to ensure the arrest of members of the syndicate.
She further claimed that members of the syndicate were trying to kill her after their blackmail plans failed.
Two among the alleged members, Adesanya and Alhaji Ganiu Awojobi, who allegedly played active roles in defrauding the businesswoman as well as publishing her nude pictures, had been arrested by IRT operatives.
The police said that Awojobi, who acted as an Islamic cleric, lured Toyin from America to Nigeria in November under the pretext of praying for her.
Adesanya on the other hand, pretended to be a businessman and later defrauded her using a phony oil deal. The police discovered that Adesanya, alleged to be the leader of the syndicate, had a penchant for defrauding and blackmailing married women, especially rich women in Nigeria and those based overseas.
It was alleged that several pictures of nude women and videos, most of them believed to be married, were recovered from him.
Police alleged that Adesanya uses Sherifat as “a catcher” to get unsuspecting women and defraud them.
Adesanya and the prophet were also able to brainwash Toyin into parting with her phone after telling her that her friend, Sherifat, took her name to a shrine and that if she received a call with the phone, she would die.
She gladly relinquished her phone to Adesanya, which he later converted to his.
The police also alleged that they discovered during investigations that Adesanya was the person who published Toyin’s nude pictures on the internet.
Toyin, while narrating her ordeal, said that Adesanya and members of his syndicate caught her through the aid of one of her friends known as Sherifat.
The victim explained that Sherifat, who also resides in US, sometime in November 2016, told her about a vision and message a prophet living in Nigeria had for her. This message, incidentally, came a month after the death of Toyin’s younger sister. Sherifat told Toyin, that an Islamic cleric in Nigeria, who used to pray for her, saw a vision and had a message for Toyin.
The cleric prophesied that if Toyin didn’t want to die the way her late sister did, she should be fervent in prayers.
Toyin recounted: “Sherifat lives in the USA and we were close friends. When this issue started, she was the person who linked me to the Alfa in Nigeria, but I wasn’t talking to the Alfa. She then traveled to London in March 2017 to meet Adesanya, who she had an affair with. She called and told me again that the Alfa told her that my death was looming unless I performed some prayers.”
While Sherifat was speaking with Toyin, Adesanya allegedly collected the phone and spoke with Toyin, stressing that he knew the cleric.
He described the cleric as “powerful and well known in Nigeria.”
Toyin recalled: “Adesanya also told me that he had several businesses in Nigeria, including petrol filling stations in Ijebu- Ode, Ogun State. Alfa Awojobi asked for N154, 000 for the prayers; I told Sherri and Otunba that I didn’t have such an amount of money and they offered to pay N100, 000 for me, while I pay the balance. I did what they asked and the Alfa started praying for me. In April, 2018, the Alfa insisted that I must come to Nigeria for the final prayers. I was really scared and I didn’t want to die the way my younger sister did.
“I traveled to Nigeria and went straight to Alfa at Ijebu-Ode. He asked me to take my bath before entering his house which I did. By midnight, he brought four men and they started praying for me. Alfa said he had seen more visions and had more prophesies concerning my husband children. I ended up spending N1.5m at the Alfa’s place before returning to America.”
She explained that in the midst of all these that Adesanya told her that he wanted her to invest in his oil business.
“He took me round some filling stations in Ijebu- Ode and people greeted him as if he was the owner of the filling stations,” recalled Toyin. “He asked me to invest a huge amount of money and maintained that after a month, I would get back my capital and 50 p e rcent as profit. I trusted him.”
It was based on that trust that Toyin ran from pillar to post to borrow N30m.
She disclosed that the person that gave her the loan, paid direct into Adesanya’s account. A month after money was paid, Toyin called Adesanya to ask about the business. “Adesanya got angry and paid back the money into my account. I was shocked and this made me believe and trusted him more than ever. I saw him as a genuine businessman. I pleaded and asked him to continue with the business. He asked me to change the money into dollars, which I did and took to him,” said Toyin.
Toyin said that two months after the altercation, the situation still remained the same; Adesanya was not forthcoming with what was going on with business, she decided to cut ties and run. When she asked for her money, Adesanya told her that things were not going as planned because the money was not enough. He said that he needed more money.
This made Toyin to go looking for more money until she ended up paying as much as N75m. The last batch of money, which was N31m, was paid into Alfa Awojobi’s bank account.
She said: “On December 2017, one of Adesanya boys called and told me that I was being defrauded. I tried to arrest Adesanya with military police, but they couldn’t recover my money. I also got him arrested with policemen in Osun and Ondo states, but he was soon allowed to go. I reported to operatives of the EFCC and they recovered 21, 000 nude photos and videos of various Nigerian women from him. He claimed that he was very sick and the EFCC granted him bail. But after his release, he went on the internet and published photoshop nude photos of myself and him, claiming that he had sexual relationship with me, which was a lie!
“The EFCC also discovered transactions between the cleric and Adesanya. They were not able to arrest him. Someone advised me to go the IRT through the IG.
Thus, I reported my case and operatives trailed and arrested the cleric and Adesanya.” Narrating his own story, Alfa Awojobi confessed to the crime, but admitted to have collected only N31m from Toyin.
He added: “It was Otunba, my partner, who brought the businesswoman to me. I’m a fraudster. I joined the syndicate three years ago. I was once a victim before I joined.
I act as an Islamic cleric, locally known as Alfa. It was Otunba that brought Toyin as a job and we defrauded her. All the money that was paid into my account by the businesswoman was shared between Otunba and I.” Adesanya, rather than face the crime and admit to it as his partner did, preferred to dwell on the nude pictures and his alleged affair with Toyin.
He insisted that he had sexual relationship with her and added that Toyin’s nude pictures were displayed on internet because she first made his arrest public. It was apparently a case of tit for tat.
.new telegraph