Ogun State Police Command has arrested a 49-year-old Abeokuta transporter, Saburi Lateef, popularly known as Alhaji Oki Osan, over the alleged murder of Mrs Adedotun Oluwaseun, a retired confidential secretary with the Ogun State Universal Basic Education Board. Nearly eight months after the retired civil servant was found strangled and slashed with a machete in her Bode Olude home in Abeokuta, the suspect has reportedly confessed to the killing, while her family insists his story does not add up.
According to Vanguard, which first reported the suspect's detailed confession, Lateef claimed he killed Oluwaseun out of frustration over N3.45 million he said she was holding for him, a claim the family flatly rejects. The confession has also confirmed what the Western Post reported about the case: that the retired teacher, fondly called Mama Teacher, was attacked after returning from a friend's retirement celebration in the Rounder area of Abeokuta.
How the killing happened
Police sources in the Homicide Section of the Ogun State Police Command said investigators initially had no lead on the killer. The Commissioner of Police, CP Olubode Ojajuni, reportedly ordered officers to leave no stone unturned.
“At the beginning, there was no link to the perpetrator of the act, but the Commissioner of Police, CP Olubode Ojajuni, directed that we should ensure that we do everything possible to unravel the killers,” a police source told Vanguard.
Investigators alleged that Lateef entered Oluwaseun's residence through a window while she was away at the retirement party, and was ransacking the house when she returned. What followed was brutal.
“He was ransacking the whole place when the woman returned. In his bid to prevent being exposed, he strangled the woman. Not convinced that the woman was dead, he picked a cutlass and inflicted multiple cuts on her body,” the source said, adding that the suspect then carried her body to the toilet and placed it on the closet to confirm she was dead.
The Daily Post Nigeria reported that the victim was attacked on Friday, February 27, 2026, a day after attending the celebration, and that the suspect allegedly macheted her neck, hand and laps. He was arrested roughly ten months later, as The Sun Nigeria reported.
Suspect claims a N3.45 million debt
In his own account, Lateef said he had known the deceased, whom he called Big Mummy, for about ten years. He said he sold his broken-down truck as scrap and handed the N3.45 million proceeds to her, hoping to secure a loan she had promised him to buy another truck.
“I don't know what came over me that day. She was owing me N3.45 million, being the proceeds of my truck, which I sold as scrap,” he said.
He claimed she kept assuring him she would give the loan later, then refused to return his money. On the day of the killing, he said he was drunk and frustrated, removed the burglary proof on a window, and gained access to her sitting room.
“When she came, we had a serious disagreement and I strangled her. After that, I picked a matchet in her apartment and inflicted cuts in different parts of her body,” he said.
Family says it never knew the suspect
The family has rejected the suspect's story from top to bottom. The deceased's eldest daughter, Mrs Taiwo Atanda, said nobody in the family had ever seen Lateef with her mother, and that her mother never mentioned keeping millions of naira for anyone.
“We don't know this man. We have been celebrating Christmas with my mother and we have never seen him in her house. My children used to spend their holidays in her house and nobody has ever seen him with her,” Atanda said.
In a twist that has left the community shaken, Lateef was reportedly among the mourners who visited the house the day after the killing. Atanda said the first time she saw him was the day after her mother's death, sitting among those commiserating with the family.
She recounted her last encounter with her mother on February 27, 2026, when Oluwaseun stopped by her house after the retirement party, spent hours with her grandchildren, and went home at dusk. The next day, no call came. A neighbour later found her body on the toilet closet, bearing multiple machete wounds.
Family demands justice
Atanda has called on the Ogun State Government and the police to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of her mother's death and ensure justice is served. The family wants investigators to establish exactly what happened inside the residence, examine the claims of a financial dispute, and determine what led to the killing.
The Police Public Relations Officer of the Ogun State Police Command, DSP Oluseyi Babaseyi, attributed the breakthrough to the persistence and professionalism of the command's officers. He assured residents that anyone found to have committed a crime would face the full weight of the law, and that criminals would have no hiding place in the state.
The case now moves to the courts, where the suspect's confession and the family's contradictions will be tested.