26-year-old Sarah Nwankpo has narrated how she allegedly killed her lover, Anthony Igbodike during a visit to his home in Rivers in December.
Sarah is a native of Ezza South Local Government in Ebonyi State. She stopped her education at SS3 from Model Comprehensive College, Ezza, and, in 2016, moved to Enugu in search of greener pastures. While in Enugu, she began a relationship that saw her become the mother of two children: a boy and a girl. However, her forays in Enugu were not as profitable as she had hoped, and so she boarded a bus to Port Harcourt in August 2023.
In Port Harcourt, she began another relationship with her now estranged boyfriend, Joe Ibanga, with whom she bore mutual affection until the events culminating in December 2023.
Shortly after arriving in Port Harcourt, she began receiving calls from a friend, Anthony Igbodike, whom she first met in 2017 while in Enugu. The calls were invitational, asking her to visit him at his home. She had given excuses to him as her way of honoring her union with Ibanga, but according to her, he was persistent, sending her money at different times.
Anthony’s tenacity eventually paid off, or not, on the 22nd of December, when she picked up the call and gave a positive response. He told her he had just returned from a family function in his village and would meet with her as soon as possible.
At the appointed time, she boarded an Okada (commercial motorbike) from her residence in Aluu and met with Anthony at Kilimanjaro by Choba junction. Anthony paid the Okada man 500 naira, and their day together began. It was about 10 a.m. at this time.
She accompanied him as he arranged to pay his staff salaries for the month of December. One of his staff members, Hope, spent some time with the duo as Anthony made transactions in the bank.
He took Sarah shopping for groceries and home supplies after he had finished the transactions and sent Hope on her way. Afterwards, they went to his apartment at Mercy Land Extension, Obiri-Ikwerre, an apartment in a compound he shares with his landlord. As they settled in, he asked her to prepare a meal for him. He accompanied her to his kitchen, showed her how to operate the appliances there, and sat back to let her finish off the cooking. It was just past noon at this time. After a few minutes, he left the house to buy more home supplies: garri, foo-foo, and a soup pack.
When she was done, Anthony helped himself to the meal of eba and soup she had prepared, as she claimed she was not hungry. After the meal, he went in to have a bath. Following this, they had an amorous congress. They had multiple congresses after that and even made video recordings of them for their records.
Sarah became hungry and decided to fix herself a meal. Throughout the time she was preparing the meal and while she ate, they were locked in friendly discussions. He inquired about her love life, and she detailed her ongoing relationship with Joe Ibanga. He laughed at the idea of her dealing with the challenges of raising children and struggling with a relationship that was not financially rewarding. He offered to wrench her free from hardship if she would let go of her relationship and marry him. He also sought to know if she was involved with other men besides her boyfriend. She said she was not.
He continued his pitch even as she went to have a bath. He explained his business to her and even presented her with job opportunities in his establishment, saying he was willing to make her a manager at his firm. She agreed to visit him again after about a week so that they could begin plans for her life with him. Based on the discussions, he had arranged for her to start working with him in January 2024.
With that out of the way, he sent her out to purchase airtime for him along the street. She left to make the purchase and suddenly no longer felt like spending the night at his place when she returned. She mentioned the sudden change in feeling to him, but he was not perturbed. To lighten her up, he suggested that they go into town to a club and buy shawarma, but she turned that down, saying she was not in the mood and needed to return home.
After several more attempts at convincing her to stay, she agreed to spend the night. She put on one of his pairs of shorts and a shirt at his behest as she prepared dinner for them. It was about 10 p.m. at this time. When he had finished eating and their discussions had whittled away, he beckoned on her to come to him. As she did, he asked that she caress him; she obliged but later opted out when he demanded another (sex) intercourse, as she said she was no longer comfortable.
Her rejection greatly provoked him, and he asked her to dress up and leave his house. She refused to leave and stood up to challenge him. A verbal war ensued, and he slapped her. She attacked him, and they began tussling and tugging at each other. As the scuffle subsided, he locked the door, picked up a walking cane, and threatened to beat her with it. In that window, she dialed her boyfriend’s number, and when he picked up, she tried to explain the events to him and asked him for help. He hung up and did not call back.
She then tried to open the door, but Anthony held her back, and they began another scrimmage. She said she screamed for help, but no one heard her, let alone rescued her. In the fighting, he dropped the walking cane, and she reached for it and noticed that it had a detachable holding head. She quickly detached the head and saw that a dagger was attached to it. As he made his way to her, she swung at him with the dagger, stabbing him several times, including with a blow to the neck that eventually proved fatal. As he bled out, he weakened.
She opened the door and tried to escape, but he grabbed her hair and maintained his grip even as she struggled to free herself. At this point, they had gotten out of his apartment, and the ruckus had alerted his landlord and his family. The landlord alerted other neighbors, and they lifted Anthony into his own vehicle and took him to the hospital. As they were making plans to leave, they noticed Sarah frantically making a call. She was calling her boyfriend again to tell him the mess she had gotten herself into. It was about midnight at this time.
The neighbors seized her phone and locked her up in Anthony’s apartment as they left for the hospital. Some of them returned after a short while and asked her if she was not paid for her services for her to resort to stabbing her host. As she tried to explain, she was beaten up and locked up again. She spent her time in the room, cleaning up the pools of blood in the apartment.
At about 1 a.m., the police arrived and took Sarah into custody. While in custody, she was informed that Anthony Anayo Igbodike had died. She also got a visit from four of his family members, who wanted to know exactly what had happened. His wife also visited the police to listen to the cause of her husband’s untimely death.
Sarah, who has confessed to the crime at the Rivers State Criminal Investigation Department, told the police that Anthony had told her that he was separated from his wife even though they had a son who was a medical doctor based in the US.
