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By Madu Obi
AN Nnobi Chief Magistrate Court in Idemili South local government area of Anambra State yesterday heard a pathetic story of an orphan, Miss Victoria Mbachu of how her boyfriend, Mr. Olufemi Salako, from Republic of Benin, allegedly duped her of N8.3 million out of N10 million proceed from a property she sold in Nnobi.
Salako, a bricklayer, has been cohabiting with Mbachu since 2018 and they have two children together.
The landed property was sold to a Nigerian based in the United States of America, USA, Mr. Bonaventure Ezekwenna in 2021, but shortly after the sale, Salako took Mbachu to Ogun State where he convinced her to pay for an uncompleted bungalow at a cost of N2.8 million.
Salako and one Chijioke Okaa, a native doctor, are facing two count charge for defrauding Mbachu of her property by tricking her to pat with the documents after promising that they would build a house for her.
Narrating her story amidst sobs, Mbachu said: "In 2020, Femi brought Chijioke Okaa to me that Okaa wanted to buy my land."
"We agreed to sell the land for N10 million and Okaa promised to build a house for me somewhere." Femi and Okaa later brought documents for me to sign and I refused to do so because he had not fulfilled the promise of building a house for me.
" It was Femi that assured me that Okaa would not deceive me and that was why I later signed. However, he did not pay for the land, neither did he build the house for me, as he kept telling me that he had not found land.
"So when someone brought Bonaventure Ezekwenna for the purchase of the land, I sold it to him at the cost of N10 million and he paid me in full and I signed the documents for him."
According to Mbachu, Femi was aware of the transaction and he also signed the documents.
She said she was, however, surprised when Femi suggested that they should run away from Nnobi to Lagos, adding that although she told him that he did not want to go, as she was already making plans to relocate to Nnewi, he prevailed on her to go to with him.
She added: "Femi insisted that we must leave Nnobi and he brought a vehicle and forced me and the children to go with him."
"When we got to Lagos, he said he found land at Ota, Ogun State and asked me to pay N2.8 million for the land and the uncompleted bungalow on it."
"He later asked for N4 million to enable him complete the house and I transferred the money to him. Apart from when he took me to the place when we arrived in Lagos, Femi had refused to take me to the house.
" Because he has access to my ATM card, he later withdrew another N1 million and another N500,000 which he said he wanted to give his father to do some work on the house."
"When I insisted on seeing the house, he took me to the place and I saw that they only roofed it. Also when I demanded for the documents of the house, he asked me if I was going to cook with it and that was when I began to doubt if he actually bought the house."
"Another thing that surprised me was that when we discovered that the police was tracking me, Femi suggested that we should escape to Benin Republic because, according to him that is actually his country, and I refused.
"He told me he is not from Ogun State, but from Benin Republic," Mbachu said.
Earlier under cross examination, Bonaventure Ezekwenna had told the court that before he paid, he involved Salako who assured him that the land was not in dispute.
He said he was surprised to see that the materials he assembled at the site for construction, including cement, iron rods, sand and other building materials, were either destroyed, or stolen.
He said that information made available to the police showed Salako's neck deep involvement in the decision of Mbachu to run away from Nnobi to Lagos after collecting the N10 million.
The presiding Chief Magistrate, Ken Nwoye adjourned further hearing to August 18.
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