I poured acid on my victim in dream, not in real life, suspect tells Delta police

A middle aged woman, (name withheld) who recently was arrested for allegedly bathing a 20-year old girl over relationship with the husband in Okpanam Community, Delta State, yesterday confessed to journalists at the Police Headquarters, Asaba that she poured the acid on her victim in her dream.

Upon the arrest of the suspect, the police, after investigation, paraded her along with other criminal suspects nabbed across the state.

But as police officers were bringing her with other suspects to the parade ground, the suspect surprised everybody as she started crying, saying “I am not the one who poured the victim, Miss Judith John-Paul the raw acid that sent her to hospital battling for life”.

According to her, “people are saying that I am the one who poured the victim the raw acid but I am not the one who did it; what happened was that I poured the victim the acid in my dream but not while awake as people are claiming”.

She added, “As I said before, every day, I dreamt of the victim snatching my husband from me and in most cases, I saw her and other members of her family eating my unborn children in the dream”.

The suspect said that she used to quarrel with the victim and her family members every day because of the dream she was always dreaming about them.

She said that on the fateful day, the suspect again came in her dream trying to bathe her with acid and in the course of defending herself, the raw acid poured on her, but was able to throw the container with the acid away, though unfortunately, the acid poured on the victim.

According to her, “I was surprised when policemen came to my house to arrest me for what happened in my dream, saying that I bathed the victim with acid on her way to the church”.

At a point, journalists began to ask questions about the health condition of the suspect, whether she is insane or not.

But a closer look at the suspect who also had some little acid burn on her hands and other parts of her body clearly showed that she was putting up or acting so that policemen investigating the matter will conclude that she was insane.

Meanwhile, the victim is still at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Asaba, battling for life with high degree of burns that affected her eye, face and other parts of her body.

In another development, following the continued alleged extortion of commercial vehicle drivers by some policemen on the Asaba/Kwale road, the IGP Monitoring team sent to the state has been called upon to monitor the activities of police officers on the road and sanction anyone caught in the act.

Some commercial bus drivers who spoke to our reporter said that though the presence of policemen in checkpoints on that road is a welcome development, the extortion, particularly on commercial vehicle operators is alarming.

According to one of them, “we are happy with the visibility of policemen on the road, but the corruption going on is unbecoming and unacceptable”.

We are calling on the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim to arrest the officers in another state who collected N50, 000 bribe from an innocent Nigerian.

They commended the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Zanna Ibrahim for reducing crime in the state; particularly the issue of herdsmen menaces, kidnapping, armed robbery, cultism and community clashes among others.

The drivers alleged that every trip they made, the officers allegedly forced them to part with between N100 and N200 per nipping point, which is too much for them, adding that at the end of every trip, each driver spent up to N1000.