Jealous Lover Stabs Rival To Death

An incensed lover, Solomon Cyril Effiom, has stabbed his kinsman, Ernest Ikpi, to death, for allegedly plotting to snatch his girlfriend, Eno, from him.

The tragic incident happened in Anineje, Akamkpa Local Government Area, on the outskirts of Calabar, Cross River State, at the weekend, when Effiom accosted Ernest for daring to give his lover, Eno, a ride.

“I caught him riding with my girlfriend on his motorcycle; he wanted to snatch her from me,” Effiom told the police at Diamond Hill, Calabar.

The suspect narrated to the anti-homicide detectives how the late Ernest provoked him to anger.

Effiom said he could not stand seeing Ernest snatch his girlfriend, whom he had spent a fortune on, so as to prevent her from being enticed by another man.

“I was the first person to ask her (Eno) out, and she fell in love with me. Since then, I have been giving her money, and buying her many gifts.

“I was doing all these to keep her happy so that no other man can take her from me.

“I have not even had sex with her for once but, Ernest was bent on snatching her from me” Effiom said.

On the day he snuffed life out of Ernest, Effiom, on sighting him and Eno cruising together on the bike, reportedly gave the duo a hot chase down the bumpy Anineje village road and forced them to a halt.

Effiom then confronted Ernest on why he had the guts to want to snatch Eno from him, as he had been hearing stories of his secret plot.

But in her own version of the story to the police, the bone of contention, Eno, described Effiom as unnecessarily jealous, as she denied ever having any love affair with the late Ernest.

The deceased, she claimed, was only an innocent commercial motorcycle rider, who carries her sometimes.

“Solomon (Effiom) has been giving me money, and asking me for friendship, but I told him to wait and let me think over it.

“And when he saw us coming that day (when Effiom was killed), he started chasing us until he stopped the motorcycle. “As the bike stopped, he started beating me, insisting that I must come to his house to sleep with him before I could go anywhere. He said meant it, or I must give him N2,000 before he would allow me to go.

“But I refused that he cannot just ask me to go and sleep with him like a prostitute; and I had no money there to give him, so he started beating me up, and kicked me severally.”

As the beating continued, Ernest allegedly attempted to stop Effiom from battering Eno, and this further enraged the jealous lover.

Suddenly, he allegedly jumped on his motorcycle and headed to his house.

He then reached for a machete which he concealed in the sleeve of his shirt, and returned to the scene of the fight .

“Before anyone knew what he came back to do, he brought out the cutlass and hit Ernest,” Eno narrated to the police.

Ernest later bled to death, as he was not immediately given medical help.

Commenting on the matter, Police Public Relations Officer for the Cross River Command, ASP Dickson Essien, informed that the suspects, Effiom and Eno, would soon be charged to court. “ This is after due investigations have been carried out,” he said.