Tragic: Cynthia Osokogu killed by her Facebook ‘friends’

Facebook has been attributed to a lot of thinks, from breaking marriages to molestation and bullying. However, today we bring you a sad story of murder by facebook. With the upsurge of mobile technology has come the easy access to internet and so called ‘friends’!. Someone pops up on your mobile mailbox requesting to be your friend and not thinking twice about it we click yes.! No harm done you say, however, I am amazed at the amount of time people spend on facebook, the thousands of ‘friends’ they boast to have, people they have never met physically, yet spend hours chatting online, telling them things they wont even tell there friends physically. They feel more comfortable revealing their secrets behind the veil of technology, forgetting that it is quite easy to access someones personal details, from where they work to college or even residential homes.

Sadly this is what happened to 24 year old beautiful post graduate student Cynthia Osokogu who was lured to her death by her facebook ‘friends’!. This is a lesson for all to learn and take something from this unfortunate story. I pray that her beautiful soul rest in peace. (Amen)

24 Year Old Cynthia Osokogu left Abuja in late July 2012 (according to reports, on the 22nd of July 2012). The post-graduate student of Nasarawa State University was a clothing retailer and had travelled to Lagos to purchase new stock.

Cynthia had been chatting with some new “friends” on Facebook for a few months. In the course of their conversations, they developed a friendship and a level of trust. These young men were also university students, they promised to host Cynthia when she came to Lagos.

There is speculation that they paid for her plane ticket and promised to pay for her hotel as well.

The two young men picked Cynthia up from the airport in Lagos and drove her to a hotel in Festac. At the hotel, they tied her up, robbed her of all the money she brought to shop for her business and strangled her to death. They then left the hotel and quickly deleted her from their Facebook friend list to remove any trace of their connection.

The hotel found her body and, since her ID cards and mobile phone had been stolen, they could not identify her or call friends and family. Her body was deposited in a morgue in Lagos. All this time, her family and friends were searching for the girl.

At some point, one of the culprits accidentally answered Cynthia’s phone and the call was traced to Festac. Therefore, her missing person’s police report was submitted to the Area E Command in Festac. This enabled her family to find her body in the morgue, and also led them to the hotel.

Using CCTV from the hotel, the killers were identified. According to reports, these two young men are university students who have now confessed that they killed Cynthia and she is their sixth victim – the gang reportedly specializes in luring unsuspecting young women, robbing them of their possessions before killing them.

Though there is speculation that their motive was ritualistic, it appears that it was greed and their main goal was to rob and kill. The pharmacist who supplied the drugs used on Cynthia and hotel staff have also been arrested. According to the police spokesperson Ngozi Braide, “Six people were arrested on Sunday over the incident and investigations are ongoing”. As you can see, Cynthia is one of Nigeria’s numerous social media generation girls (with BB and a facebook account), this unfortunately led to her demise.