One of the three Nigerian students who were reportedly attacked by armed robbers at their residence at Accra New Town, leading to the death of one, has confessed to staging the attack.
Mustapha Musa Osmani, 22, a student of the Sikkim Manipal University, near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, who broke down in front of a television camera and journalists, said when he did that he was under the influence of a drug.
“I was out of control. I do not know why I did that. I have never quarrelled with my brothers since we arrived in Ghana two years ago to further our education,” he said while sobbing.
Osmani had reported to the Kotobabi Police last Friday, November 28, 2014, that three masked men had attacked him and his two brothers, Nazifi Osmani Mohammed, 23, and Jamiru Osmani, 27, in their room in a compound house at Accra New Town.
He also told the police that they struggled with the masked men who had demanded the $4,000 meant for their registration fee at the Sikkims Manipal University, where they were pursuing a course in Information Technology (IT).
According to Osmani, his brothers were stabbed in the chest and stomach, while he was injured in the right hand.
Later, when some Good Samaritans took them to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Mohammed was pronounced dead and Jamiru was admitted, while he was treated and discharged.
Overdose
At a press briefing, Osmani pleaded for forgiveness from his family and friends.
The Accra Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr Christian Tetteh Yohuno, told journalists that one of the Osmani brothers, Jamiru, told police investigators that he had been stabbed by his brother while he was sleeping at dawn last Friday.
He said when Osmani was questioned over his brother’s revelation, “he confessed to committing the offence and said he had taken an overdose of a medication”.
Mr Yohuno said Osmani claimed he had been taking some doses of Daizepam every day to enable him to stay awake and study for more than five hours, “but on Thursday night he took 20 tablets instead of two”.
Osmani, according to Mr Yohuno, also said he became hyperactive after taking the medication and “he took a knife and stabbed Jamiru in the chest in the living room and moved to the bedroom where Mohammed was sleeping and stabbed him in the stomach and chest”.
When Mohammed’s intestines gushed out, Mr Yohuno said, Osmani went back to the sitting room and when he found Jamiru still alive, “he asked Jamiru if he knew the person who had attacked him, but Jamiru said he didn’t”.
According to the police, the suspect subsequently raised an alarm that he and his brothers had been attacked by armed robbers.
Nigerian community
When asked about the wound on his left hand, Osmani claimed he had recovered shortly after stabbing his brothers and had attempted to take his own life, but Mohammed, before his death, had prevented him from doing so, which resulted in a struggle over the knife, resulting in the cut.
The police said Mohammed, who was wounded in the right and left chest, with some portion of his ear chopped off, was responding to treatment at the Hospital.
A provisional charge of murder and causing harm has been preferred against Osmani. A total sum of GH¢800 being part of the registration fee was retrieved from Osmani.
Later in an interview, the President of the Nigerian Community in Ghana, Mr Moses Owhara, who described the incident as unfortunate, said “it is a very disturbing incident which will tarnish the good name of the Nigerian community”.
He pledged the support of the Nigerian community in assisting the police in their investigations and urged all Nigerians resident in Ghana to be law-abiding.
