A final-year student of Kwara State College of Education, Lawal Hafsoh Yetunde has been tragically killed for ritual purposes in Ilorin after being lured by an Islamic cleric, Abdulrahman Mohad Ballo, who she met on Facebook.
A suspect, said to be the son of a prominent Muslim cleric in the Isalekoto community, is now in police custody at the police command headquarters in Ilorin
According to reports, she was attending a naming ceremony when she received a call from a friend. She left her food to answer the call and subsequently disappeared. Her family and friends launched a search but could not locate her.
Her father, Ibrahim Lawal, reported her missing on Tuesday at the Oja-Oba Police Division in Ilorin.
The police requested her phone number and used it to track her last call, which led them to a suspect residing in the Ofa Garage area of Ilorin, though his family home is in Isalekuto.
Upon arrest, the suspect initially denied any knowledge of Hafsoh’s whereabouts. However, during a search of his house, he confessed that she had visited him but died from an asthma attack after he invited her over.
Further investigation revealed a gruesome scene: Hafsoh’s body was found dismembered and hidden in a bowl, alongside tools allegedly used to dismember her.
The suspect, now in custody at the Kwara State Police Headquarters, is believed to have met Hafsoh on Facebook, where he obtained her phone number and lured her to his residence.
The evidence from his home suggests he may have done this before, as a table in his room had tools similar to those used for cutting up bodies.
The case is currently under investigation at the Kwara State Police Command headquarters.
Reacting to the incident, the spokesperson for the Kwara State Police Command, SP Adetoun Ejire-Adeyemi, confirmed: “The command is aware of the gruesome killing of one Miss Yetunde H. Lawal.
“On 11/02/2025, at about 18:00 hours, a case of a missing person was reported at C Division, Oja-Oba, by her father, Mr Ibrahim A. Lawal.
“Immediately, police detectives swung into action, tracked her number, and arrested a suspect. The case was transferred yesterday to the SCID for a thorough investigation. Further updates will be communicated as the investigation progresses.”
This isn’t the first time such a tragic incident has happened in Ilorin. In August 2024, a 21-year-old student from Kwara State College of Health Technology, Mojisola Awesu, was found dead at a garbage dump in the Aleniboro area of Ilorin. She had agreed to act as a girlfriend for a private university student at a party in exchange for N15,000, as arranged by her friend.
Labourers discovered her body at the dump, and the police were called to the scene. They recovered the body and took it to a morgue.
The police said that earlier, a missing person report was filed by Miss Blessing about her roommate, Mojisola Awesu. Mojisola had left home to attend a party organised by students from two private universities in the state.
According to the police, Mojisola received a call on August 9 from her friend Timileyin, who told her about the party. Timileyin introduced Mojisola to Adebayo Happiness, a Summit University student, who invited her to the party, offering her N15,000 to act as his girlfriend
Mojisola updated her roommate about the party but later stopped responding to calls, and her phone became unreachable. After an investigation, several suspects were arrested in connection with her death.