Man Bathes In-Law With Acid

A middle-aged woman, Mrs. Victoria Agoro, has been subjected to an acid attack by her daughter’s husband, Chijee Anyalibechi.

Mrs. Agoro is now writhing in pains at the Burns and Emergency ward of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, in Lagos, and doctors say she needs about N300,000 for an urgent plastic surgery on her blistered body.

Because the acidic substance was poured on her, right from her head, one of her eyes has been blinded in the attack and she now only manages to see with the other.

The 45-year old mother got the shock of her life on 6 October, at her Igbogbo Ikorodu, Lagos residence, when her son-in-law, Anyalibechi, emerged late in the night with a bucket of acid and emptied the contents on her.

Anyalibechi’s wife, Abiodun, told SPECTRUM News she was actually the target of the attack by her estranged husband but left her mom’s house, where she had been putting up, for Ibadan on the day of the incident.

Abiodun, fought back tears while narrating the story to SPECTRUM.News, expressing regrets that she ever married Anyalibechi, who turned out to mete out such cruel treatment on her mother.

“Neighbours told me that my husband disguised in an Islamic outfit, and sneaked into my mom’s apartment that night, carrying a full bucket of acid and poured it on my mother from head to toe, with some of it splashing on my sister, Aminat.

“He then tried to escape running into a nearby street, but he was chased by some men who beat him to a pulp before policemen later came to his rescue,” Abiodun recalled.

Abiodun, 22, a student of the University of Abuja, got married to Anyalibechi, 38, in June last year in Lagos and the couple moved to Abuja where they lived together until they separated in July this year.

Anyalibechi claims to be a lawyer, but his wife said he never practiced as one. Rather he was always into one shady deal or the other, which Abiodun soon found out months into their marriage.

“I complained severally on his sleazy ways, but he always had a lie to disabuse my mind each time I challenged him,” Abiodun said.

But at some point in July this year, when Anyalibechi could no longer cover up his tracks, his wife said he accused her of infidelity, and thus said he was no longer interested in their marriage.

“I denied her charge of infidelity but he was bent on ending our union, so he took me down to my mom’s place in Ikorodu and dumped me there.”

Abiodun’s family members, especially her mom, tried to mend fences with Anyalibechi, but he stood his grounds.

He then left his base in Abuja and relocated to Lagos, also in the Ikorodu area, where he started putting up in his friend’s house not too far from the Agoros. It was from where he allegedly plotted the brutal attack on his in-laws.

Asked why he chose to attack her mom and not her, even after he willingly handed her (Abiodun) to her mom, Abiodun said Anyalibechi had, from his nearby base, made several failed attempts to attack her.

“He must have planned to pour the acid on me but because he didn’t find me at home that day, and because he didn’t want the acid to be wasted he turned to my mom instead.

“I don’t know what our offence is but I believe I was his target. Maybe because I found out his secrets.

“He claimed to be what he wasn’t. He is fraudulent and devilish, though I married him and I’m supposed to know him well enough before agreeing to marry him.

“I later found out that the family members he brought to my parents when we were to be married were not his real relatives. He actually hired them,” Abiodun lamented.

Meanwhile, Anyalibechi who escaped being lynched after his acid attack on Mrs. Agoro, but for the intervention of policemen, is now also lying critically ill at the Ikorodu General Hospital.

Policemen at Igbogbo, Ikorodu Division, who first took him into custody, rushed him there when he started bleeding badly from the serious beating he received from the angry mob.

SPECTRUM.News trailed him to his sick bed, where he muttered some words, denying that he ever attacked his in-laws with acid.

Anyalibechi rather claimed to have been kidnapped by some people at gunpoint, blindfolded, and dropped at the entrance to his mother-inlaw’s house, at the same time the acid attack was carried out.

He further claimed that when he managed to get his bearing, a mob soon pounced on him and accused him of carrying out the dastardly act of the acid attack.

When SPECTRUM. News visited the Igbogbo Police Station where the case was incidented, a source just said the case had been transferred to the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) Panti, Yaba.

SPECTRUM. News however learnt that detectives from the FCID visited the crime scene at the weekend, in furtherance of the investigation into the acid attack.