Nearly four years after the death of Super TV CEO Michael Usifo Ataga shocked Nigeria, the woman at the center of the case, Chidinma Ojukwu, is telling the court a very different version of events than the one that originally made headlines. On a tense Thursday in a Lagos High Court, Chidinma, now in her twenties, testified that she did not kill Ataga. Instead, she claimed she walked back into the short-let apartment in Lekki and found his lifeless body. The room was in chaos. There was blood on the floor, and his body was slumped. She said fear took over. She panicked and fled.
It was a stark departure from the early days of the case, when video footage and police statements suggested she had confessed to stabbing him after an argument. At the time, the story took over the country. Here was a wealthy tech executive found murdered, and a young university student, only 21, arrested shortly after. The press pounced on the narrative. There were rumors about drugs, sex, extortion. The confession seemed to seal her fate. But now, in court, Chidinma’s lawyers are painting a different picture—one of a frightened young woman who was overwhelmed, manipulated, and coerced.
As she spoke, the courtroom was quiet. Ataga’s family sat in silence, listening, watching. Chidinma said she had gone out to buy food that day, and when she returned, he was already dead. She didn’t call the police, she admitted. She didn’t scream or ask for help. She just ran. Her lawyers argue that her confession was made under duress and that investigators rushed to close the case without exploring other possibilities. The prosecution, on the other hand, has built its argument around physical evidence—her fingerprints in the apartment, blood-stained clothes, and surveillance footage showing her leaving the scene.
The case has raised broader questions about justice, media bias, and the treatment of young suspects in high-profile trials. It’s also become a cultural flashpoint, reflecting deep divisions around gender, class, and power in Nigerian society. Was Chidinma a cold-blooded killer, or a scapegoat caught in something bigger than she could control? The answer is still being contested, and with each court session, the public is being forced to rethink what it thought it knew.
The trial is ongoing. Witnesses continue to testify. Legal teams continue to argue. And behind it all is a grieving family, a young woman whose life changed in an instant, and a country still trying to make sense of one of its most gripping murder cases in recent memory.
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