lawyer arraigned for bashing husband’s head with frying pan, cutting off his penis

A Lagos High Court in Igbosere has heard a chilling, blow- by- blow account of how a lawyer, Udeme Otike-Odibi, allegedly killed her lawyer husband Symphorosa Otike-Odibi and severed his penis.

A prosecution witness, Mr Olusegun Bamidele, told Justice Adedayo Akintoye that Udeme, 48, whacked Symphorosa on the head with a frying pan several times before stabbing him on the stomach with a kitchen knife.

Still furious, she sat beside his corpse on the bed and said: “‘If this your penis is the one that is giving you license not to have the feeling of another person, it is better we cut it off.”

Udeme then severed the penis before putting a piece of it in his right hand.

Bamidele, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in the homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Panti, Yaba, Lagos, testified as the Lagos State Government’s ninth witness in Udeme’s murder trial.

His testimony followed Udeme’s June 13 arraignment on a two-count charge of murder and misconduct with regard to a corpse, by Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Titilayo Shitta-Bey.

The government accused the defendant of stabbing Symphorosa, also a lawyer, to death and mutilating his corpse by cutting off his genitals, on May 3 at their Diamond Estate, Sangotedo, Lekki, Lagos home.

Shitta-Bey said the offences contravened sections 165 (b) and 223 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

Udeme pleaded “not guilty”, following which she was remanded in prison custody.

At the resumption of trial on Wednesday, Shitta-Bey called Bamidele, a 30-year police veteran, as the state’s final witness.

Bamidele told the court that he was the head of a team that investigated the killing and that he personally recorded the defendant’s statement.

He said the second time he met Udeme, she had been moved from Safeway Hospital in Lekki to protective police custody at a police hospital at Ikeja.

It was there, he said, during an interactive session, that Udeme wrote a detailed confessional statement