Mother of two nabbed for sending threatening text messages

[Mirror]

C Chinyere Arinze, 25, used to be a married mother of two kids until she got divorced about two years ago. After her divorce, she relocated to Abakpa, Enugu to live with her parents. Unfortunately, she was always having disagreements with two of her cousins and she vowed to deal with them.

And since her divorce from her husband, she had been living from hand to mouth without any concrete means of income so she hatched a plan to make money and also get back at her 'nagging' cousins, Chinwe and Ebere, who worked as petrol attendants in one of the filling stations in the town.

In October, she sourced a mobile telephone number and used it to send a threatening text message to Emmanuel Obi, the owner of the filling station where Chinwe and Ebere worked. In the text, she claimed she had got wind of plans by Chinwe and Ebere to connive with armed robbers to attack the filling station and demanded that Obi should reward her of an amount of money for her effort.

Worried, Obi, reported the issue to the anti-kidnapping unit of the state police command and before long, Chinyere was tracked and arrested. Upon her arrest, she confessed to the crime, adding that her aim for sending the threat message was to humiliate Chinwe and Ebere and make them suffer for their past misdeeds towards her. "My cousins always made fun of me because of my problem with my former husband so I wanted them to suffer too.

That's why I sent the text to their boss," she said. Adding that she regrets sending the text, she said she would have loved to personally meet with the petrol merchant to tender her apology to him.

She also called on the law enforcement agents as well as her two cousins to forgive her especially for the sake of her two kids. Speaking on the issue, Obi said, "I will remain grateful to God and the police for the prompt arrest of the culprit," he said. In his reaction to the latest breakthrough of law enforcement agents in the state, Enugu State Police Public Relations Officer, Ebere Amaraizu, commended the anti-kidnapping unit of the state police command for their feet to promptly arrest the suspect.

He assured that Chinyere would soon be arraigned in court and that others like her who were also involving in extortion which was the new crime wave in the state would also be caught and dealt with.

[Folami David]

Most Nigerians don't know it is a crime to send threatening messages. Good for this woman

[Nifemi Donald]

This will always be a crime in Nigeria so it would serve as a lesson to other citizens of this country.