One of the most celebrated trials of murder in Ondo was the one that involved the arraignment and eventual conviction of two friends – Olorunwa and Allah-dey – for the first degree murder of a pregnant Ondo woman, Funmilayo, at a stream near Aogo in the early 60s.
Olorunwa, (real name was Segun Woghiren) was a student at Ansar-Ud-Deen Modern School at Okelisa in 1961 but, later dropped out to found a white garment church of which he was the Pastor. He was a young boy whose hairs later formed dreadlocks, a development which he claimed was a directive from God. He suddenly started getting rich, buying a Morris Minor taxi car while his congregation grew larger and larger, attracting more women than men.
It was at this stage that an apprentice carpenter by the name of Allah-dey (real name was Buraimoh Otokiti) joined Olorunwa in his church supposedly for evangelizing but in reality, for nefarious deeds. The two of them specialized in luring pregnant ladies under the pretext of praying for them for safe deliveries to a stream near the present site of Adeyemi College of Education, where they would later kill and dismember them to force out the foetuses for ritual purposes!
This was what they did to an Ondo lady by the name of Funmilayo whose cries during the agony of death, attracted a nearby hunter who watched the horrifying spectacle and whose evidence was used by the prosecution team to nail the fake pastors!
Olorunwa and Allah-dey were tried and sentenced to death in 1963 and were duly hanged in strict accordance with the statute book! The saga of the trial of the duo gripped the imagination of the Ondo people who had never before witnessed such barbarities on their soil!
It was therefore a relief when they found out that neither Segun Woghiren, alias Olorunwa nor Buraimoh Otokiti, alias Allah-dey, was from Ondo. The two were from Benin and Sabongida Ora in present day Edo State.
“Ledumae e a da to r’uufe won ma n’ale Ondo!”
Written By: Taoheed Ajao