The Lagos State High Court sitting at Igbosere on Thursday admitted in evidence Benjamin Nnayereugo, popularly known as “ Killaboi ”’s written statement and a video recording of his interrogation.
Killaboi is standing trial over the alleged murder of his girlfriend, Augusta Onuwabhagbe.
The statement and video recording were admitted in evidence, while an investigating police officer from the State Criminal Investigation Department, DSP Oderinde Gafar, testified in the ongoing murder trial of Nnayereugo.
The prosecution, led by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Adedayo Haroun, called Gafar following the conclusion of the deceased’s mother, Mrs Cordelia Onuwabhagbe’s testimony.
The witness narrated to Justice Ibironke Harrison how he carried out investigations on the arrest and extradition of the defendant.
Gafar told the court that Nnayereugo was arrested in Qatar following coordinated international efforts and later brought back to Nigeria for prosecution.
According to him, “The defendant was arrested in Qatar through collaboration with relevant security agencies and subsequently extradited to Nigeria to face trial.”
He further told the court that the defendant voluntarily made a written statement during interrogation.
“The defendant wrote his statement himself during the investigation,” he said.
The prosecution thereafter tendered the statement, which was admitted in evidence by the court without objection.
The court also played a video recording of the statement-taking process in open court.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel, Mr Marcel Oru (SAN), the witness was questioned on the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement before he was discharged.
The prosecution informed the court that it had concluded the evidence of both the investigating officer and the deceased’s mother, Mrs Cordelia Onuwabhagbe, and that it had one remaining witness to close its case.
Justice Harrison thereafter adjourned the matter to June 17 and 18, 2026, for continuation of the trial.
On April 22, 2026, the deceased’s mother, Cordelia Onuwabhagbe, the grieving 56-year-old mother of the late Augusta, had told the court that she once regarded the defendant, Benjamin Nnayereugo, as a member of her family but never knew he was capable of murder.
While testifying during cross-examination, she said the defendant, also known as ‘Killaboi,’ frequently visited her home, where he ate, rested, and sometimes slept.
“Until this ugly incident that led to my daughter’s death, he was like a son to me. He came to my house, ate, rested, and slept, but I didn’t know he was a killer,” she said.
The witness, who put her daughter’s age at the time of death as 21 years, 5 months, 10 days, and 11 hours, also denied knowing that his alias was ‘Killaboi’ but said she got to know this after Augusta’s death.
She told Justice Harrison that the defendant attended her church twice and she thought he was a good person, but it turned out to be a ploy to deceive her.
While recounting what she knew of the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death, Cordelia testified that the defendant had taken the late Augusta on trips to Mauritius in 2021 and Seychelles in 2022.
According to her, the Seychelles trip was when the defendant first physically abused the deceased.
She said the two stayed about five days in Mauritius and about nine days in Seychelles.
Narrating what she knew of the conflicts between the pair in Seychelles, the witness said the defendant informed her that a quarrel erupted after he caught her daughter scantily dressed and making videos of herself to be posted online.
“Benjamin told me that he broke her phone and then used his phone to do a video, which he sent to me. The cause of the fight was that she was videoing herself, so he snatched the phone and asked why she was videoing herself, but he was the same person who videoed her for the job she went to do, and she posted it online,” the witness said.
Defence counsel, Oru, suggested to the witness that the disagreement occurred because the defendant did not like the videos posted online by the deceased, which showed her “virtually naked,” but the witness rejected the claim, insisting that her daughter was in her bikinis for jobs.
The witness also dismissed allegations that during the altercation, her daughter damaged hotel property worth thousands of dollars, saying the defendant did not tell her this, nor did the video sent to her show such destruction.
Augusta’s mother also denied insinuations by the defendant’s counsel that her daughter was violent.
She testified that even though ‘Killaboi’ sent her a stab wound allegedly inflicted on his hand by her daughter, she knew that the wound occurred as a result of him stabbing her repeatedly on the stomach when he killed her.
The court also heard that the defendant spent N10m to organise a birthday party for the deceased, during which time he bought her expensive gifts, including designer bags, jewellery, and an iPhone.
The witness acknowledged seeing the gifts posted online but added that the defendant collected the iPhone back when he killed her daughter.
She further told the court that before her daughter’s death, the defendant never informed her that the relationship had ended or that the deceased was allegedly involved in prostitution or a “hookup.”
“It was after he killed her that he started saying that she had sex tapes with men,” Onuwabhagbe said.
The witness also dismissed the claim by the defendant that her daughter’s former boyfriend, one Marvin, broke up with her because he caught her cheating while she pretended to be in school in Ibadan.
“I know Marvin, but my daughter never told me she dated him, but Benjamin said she did,” she told the court.
When the defence counsel asked, “Do you know that the reason Marvin left her was because while she claimed to be reading in school in Ibadan, he saw her in a hotel with another man?”, the witness replied, “I don’t know, but that’s no reason to kill my daughter.”
According to the mother, she had once spoken with her daughter after the defendant accused her of chatting with another man online.
“When I called my daughter, she said she knew it was the defendant who impersonated a man to call her for sex because he never trusted her,” the witness stated.
Asked about financial support allegedly given to her by the defendant, she admitted receiving sums of money from him on a few occasions, including N60,000, N100,000, N15,000 for a recharge card, and another N1m, which she said she immediately transferred to a cooperative account because she was afraid of the large amount.
She said she later sent the N1m to an informant in November 2023, who asked to be paid after informing her that the suspect had fled to Sierra Leone after killing her daughter.
She denied claims that the defendant regularly spent money on her or paid money into some of her bank accounts.
Justice Harrison adjourned the case to Thursday for continuation of cross-examination.
Killaboi was accused of killing the 21-year-old at his Ajah residence in Lagos on July 13, 2023, before fleeing Nigeria.
He was declared wanted by the Nigeria Police Force SCID in October 2023, and an INTERPOL Red Notice was issued. He was first arrested in Sierra Leone under a false identity but escaped during a prison break in November 2023.
He continued to evade authorities across multiple regions using forged identities, eventually relocating to Doha, Qatar, in January 2025.
Through international cooperation and biometric verification, his identity was confirmed, leading to his arrest in Qatar in February 2025 and extradition to Nigeria in April 2025.
In June 2025, the Lagos State Government filed a two-count charge against him, including alleged indecent interference with the victim’s corpse and murder.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in November 2025.
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