Hook-up tragedy: Celine, Afiba families suspect foul play

 

 

 

The whereabouts of two friends, Celine Ndudim and Afiba Tandoh have raised fears on the dangerous hook-up culture which appears to be popular among many young ladies.

 

Celine, a Nigerian and Afiba, her Ghanian friend have been missing since April 27, while travelling from Port Harcourt to Aba, Abia State to meet one Andrew Ochekwo (Amechi), a man based in the Ogbor Hill area of Aba.

 

Ochekwo, now late, had been seen in a viral video clip on social media inviting the two women to his home for a “hook-up,” a slang term in Nigeria often associated with transactional sex.

 

Ochekwo promised the women a nice time in his six bedroom apartment.

 

Human rights activist, Harrison Gwamnishu, brought this alarming situation to light through a series of Facebook posts.

 

He disclosed that Ochekwo had allegedly held Ndudim and Tandoh hostage after their arrival.

 

 

In May, Gwamnishu announced that the ladies had gone missing, and Ochekwo was subsequently arrested by the Aba Police Divisional Headquarters for being in possession of ‘women’s belongings’.

 

Despite the evidence suggesting the women had visited him, Ochekwo reportedly refused to confess to any wrongdoing.

 

Gwamnishu shared that numerous other women came forward with testimonies, claiming that Ochekwo had previously kidnapped and attempted to murder them before they managed to escape.

 

The severity of the case led to its transfer from Aba to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Abia State Police Command in Umuahia, and eventually to the Force Headquarters in Abuja.

 

This move came after an unidentified individual petitioned the Inspector-General of Police,  Kayode Egbetokun, alleging that Ochekwo was living in relative comfort while in custody.

 

The situation took a grim turn when Gwamnishu revealed in another post that Ochekwo had been killed while being transported by policemen from Abia to Abuja.

 

“Before I left Delta with the victims’ families to Abuja, I got a call that Andrew Ochekwo, the man who kidnapped the two friends, was killed.

 

 

“They (police) said while they were taking him (the suspect) to Abuja, the man tried to escape and he was shot dead,” Gwamnishu explained in a video uploaded on Facebook.

 

Further confirming the death, Gwamnishu uploaded another video showing a body, identified by staff members of his human rights group, Behind Bars Initiative, as Ochekwo’s.

 

The group had travelled to Otukpo, Benue State, where the body had been deposited in a morgue, to verify the death.

 

Adding to the horror, Gwamnishu and the Intelligence Response Team of the police from the Force Intelligence Bureau discovered a decomposed body in a bush near Ochekwo’s Aba residence.

 

“Yesterday (Monday), at about 10:00 p.m., we arrived in Aba and the company of police officers from FIB-IRT Abuja, we went out for a search and discovered a decomposed body wrapped and dumped somewhere around ZeeRock Area Ogbor-Hill, Aba, Abia State,” Gwamnishu wrote.

 

He also noted that the body was missing several parts, including the head, two hands, and two legs, making identification challenging.

 

A curtain used to wrap the body matched one seen in Ochekwo’s residence, hinting at a possible connection to the missing women.

 

 

However, the identity of the discovered body remains unconfirmed.

 

Celine’s sister, Tessy Ndudim, told BBC News Pidgin the girls were declared missing on April 27, 2024.

 

She said she had also reported to the Abia State Police Command who had begun investigating the matter before it was taken over by the Force Headquarters.

 

This is coming after police authorities said they had recovered one dead body near the place the girls were believed to have lodged before their phones went off.

 

How it happened

 

 

Tessy said she got a call from her sister on April 27, who told her that the man she and her friend had gone to visit from Port Harcourt to Aba had kidnapped them.

 

That same day, Tessy said she travelled to Aba and reported the matter to the police.

 

She confirmed that indeed her sister, Celine and her friend, Afiba, had gone to see one man, Andrew Amechi, in Aba. After a few hours, Celine was said to have sent a WhatsApp message to one of her friends that she had been kidnapped and asked her to call the police and cry for help.

 

Celine said she shared this information with the police when she got to the Abia State Police Command.

 

“The police would have rescued my sister and her friend that week when I reported the matter to them, but they did not seem to take it seriously. They kept saying it was a gradual process and that wherever they were, they could not be injured.

 

“But I insisted, and they finally went for a search in the area believed to be their last location. But, when they got there, they couldn’t access all the houses.

 

“I saw a car believed to belong to the suspect because my sister had shared a video of the car when it came to pick them up at a hotel when they arrived in Aba.

 

 

“The police dismissed me and said they would go for another search by 2 am the next morning. When they got there, they said they didn’t see anything,” she said.

 

Tessy said the response from the police made them write a petition to the Police Zone 9 in Umuahia.

 

An order was given by the Umuahia Command and some men were deployed to go for another search in that same location where the girls were believed to have been.

 

“It was the Umuahia Command that finally made an arrest in the same building I had told the first set of officers to check,” she added.

 

Tessy said her family had been distraught since the news broke, adding that her mother had been sick since then.

 

She begged the Abia State Government to lend their voice in the matter as many people had reported similar cases in the area.

 

Missing Ghanaian citizen married

 

 

Afiba Tandor, the second lady who is missing is a citizen of Ghana, who visited Celine and joined her on this ill-fated trip to see Amechi.

 

Afiba’s husband told BBC News Pidgin that he was not happy with the way the police were handling the matter.

 

He said the issue had lingered for more than one month and no headway had been made.

 

He said he spoke to his wife when she left Accra, Ghana with Celine for Lagos. From Lagos, they went to Owerri, Imo State, before they travelled to Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

 

The husband also said he was aware that his wife, Afiba, accompanied her friend to Aba to see Amechi.

 

His worry became fear when he could no longer reach his wife, as she was not responding to his text messages.

 

The next day, he said he got a text message from a friend of Celine that Afiba had been kidnapped alongside Celine.

 

 

The man said he reached out to Celine’s family members who reported the matter to the police in Aba and followed up with all the things the police said they needed.

 

He said he did not believe that the body the police were said to have recovered was his wife’s until a DNA test was done.

 

“I am not happy and I don’t believe that my wife is dead. If I knew my wife was dead, would I be talking to you like this?

 

“I beg the Nigerian Police to do everything possible to rescue my wife and her friend,” he added.

 

 

With additional report from Punch