The Two Fires of Deji Adenuga: A Story of Prison Breaks and Unquenched Rage

Some crimes are impulsive—born of a single, blinding moment of rage. Others are slow‑burning resentments, simmering for years until they explode. The case of Deji Adenuga, a 45‑year‑old palm‑wine tapper from Ondo State, Nigeria, belongs to neither category. It belongs, instead, to a rare and terrifying third type: the repeating monster. A man who killed, escaped justice, killed again, and then—decades later—was arrested still insisting he felt no regret.

This is the story of two fires, sixteen years apart, and a criminal justice system that failed to stop a killer in between.

Part One: The First Wife — Abiye, 2003

In the small town of Erinje, Okitipupa Local Government Area, Deji Adenuga was known as a hardworking palm‑wine tapper. But by 2003, his first marriage had curdled. According to Adenuga’s own confession to police in 2019, the dispute was over money—specifically, ₦450,000 (a significant sum in early‑2000s Nigeria) that he claimed his wife had “gone away with”. The true nature of their final argument remains murky; Adenuga gave multiple versions to different newspapers. In one account, the disagreement was over a contribution scheme; in another, he claimed the argument started when she refused to turn over his savings.

What is not disputed is the outcome. In 2003, Deji Adenuga killed his wife, Abiye. The method, as later described by police, was a knife. A domestic dispute that escalated into homicide. In any functional system, this would have been the end of Adenuga’s freedom for decades—if not for life.

But in 2003, the Nigerian correctional system had other plans.

Part Two: The Prison Break — 2013

Arrested and charged with Abiye’s murder, Adenuga was remanded at Olokuta Prison in Akure, Ondo State, to await trial. However, formal legal proceedings stalled, and what might have been a routine murder case took a dramatic turn. Adenuga claimed that he was sentenced to death in 2012 while inside Olokuta Prison. Confirmation of this exact sentence is difficult to find in official Nigerian court records, but multiple southeastern Nigerian media outlets reported the death‑sentence claim without contradiction from authorities.

Whether he was awaiting trial or under a death sentence, the circumstances inside Olokuta soon became irrelevant. On the night of June 30, 2013, a heavily armed gang launched a brazen assault on the facility. The attackers, numbering about 30, used dynamite to blast through the fortified walls of the medium‑security prison. Once inside, they freed 175 inmates in a matter of hours. Two civilians were shot dead during the attack.

In the chaos, Deji Adenuga simply walked out. For the next six years, he vanished back into Ondo State society—a convicted killer (or, at minimum, an accused killer) freely walking the streets. No one raised an alarm. No manhunt found him. He resumed his trade. And, eventually, he found another partner.

Part Three: Titi Sanumi — The Second Family

By 2017 or 2018, Adenuga was in a relationship with a young woman named Titi Sanumi. She was living with him, and family members on her side reportedly encouraged the match. However, there was friction from the beginning—specifically from Titi’s elder sister, Jumoke.

According to Adenuga’s confession, Jumoke imposed a kind of informal tax on the relationship. “She would collect money from me every other day… to feed her own family,” he told police. He described himself as being treated like an “Automated Teller Machine”. When Titi became pregnant, the family dynamics only worsened. Adenuga alleged that Jumoke pressured Titi to abort the pregnancy—at four months. After the termination, Titi moved out, taking ₦55,000 of Adenuga’s money and personal belongings with her to her family’s house.

It is important to note that these are Adenuga’s claims. Both Titi (who survived) and other victims’ family members have never publicly confirmed this version. What is uncontested is that by April 2019, Adenuga was consumed by rage—and his rage was about to become an inferno.

Part Four: The Night of April 23, 2019 — Easter Monday

Easter Monday 2019 fell on April 22 in Nigeria, but Adenuga acted in the early hours of April 23. He had planned his arson with cold precision. He purchased a 500 naira‑worth of petrol (about $1.40 USD at 2019 exchange rates) and stored it. Around 2:00 a.m., he approached the house of Jumoke (Titi’s sister) in Igbodigo, Okitipupa, while its occupants were in deep sleep.

He forced open a window, poured the petrol inside, and ignited it. Inside that room were nine people. Most were children. Adenuga later claimed he had only intended to kill Titi and Jumoke. “I didn’t know that all the members of the family would be sleeping in that same room that very day,” he told Vanguard newspaper.

The victims:

Five people died instantly. Four others were rushed to the Trauma Centre in Ondo. Three of those died later in the hospital, bringing the total dead to eight. Among the deceased were children—though exact ages were never released. The only survivor was Titi Sanumi, Adenuga’s former girlfriend. She remained in critical condition for weeks, fighting for her life in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Part Five: “I Have No Regret”

Adenuga fled south to Ijebu‑Ode, Ogun State, after the fire. For five days, he eluded capture. But on April 28, 2019, police tracked him to a hideout “under the bridge” in Ijebu‑Ode and arrested him. He was returned to Akure in handcuffs.

When paraded before journalists at the Ondo State Police Command headquarters, Adenuga did something unusual for a mass murderer: he confessed fully and without remorse. “I have no regret killing them,” he told reporters. “When they did their own, nobody punished them.” He described waiting for months, hoping the family would return his belongings. When they didn’t, he decided that if his property could not be recovered, it would be destroyed—along with everyone inside the house.

The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Undie Adie, announced that Adenuga would face two murder charges: one for the eight victims of the 2019 arson, and a revived charge for the 2003 murder of his first wife, Abiye. The earlier death sentence (or pending trial) from which Adenuga had escaped would also be revisited. “He escaped with other inmates during the jailbreak in 2013,” Adie said. “But now that nemesis has caught up with him, he will face the law”.

Part Six: Where Is Deji Adenuga Now?

As of mid‑2019, Adenuga was back in Olokuta Prison—the same facility he had escaped from six years earlier—awaiting trial. But in the years since then, there have been no public updates by Nigerian authorities regarding his trial, conviction, or imprisonment status.

It is unknown whether he was ever retried for Abiye’s 2003 murder. It is unknown if the new charges for the 2019 arson have been adjudicated. The last official police statement, from June 2019, merely promised that Adenuga would be “charged to court”. Whether justice was ever served to the families of the eight victims—including the murdered children—remains an open, and deeply troubling, question.

Aftermath: A System That Failed

The Adenuga case is not just a story of individual evil. It is a case study in institutional collapse. A man accused of killing his wife in 2003 should not have been free to kill eight more people in 2019. But he was, because:

· The 2013 Olokuta jailbreak was one of the largest in modern Nigerian history, yet basic security measures were never overhauled.

· After Adenuga escaped, no effective manhunt brought him back.

· For six years, a man who had either been convicted of murder or was awaiting trial for it lived openly in his community, dating again, working his trade, and planning his next attack.

It took a second massacre—eight more dead—for the police to finally question how Adenuga had been walking free at all.

The Unanswered Question

Titi Sanumi, the lone survivor of the 2019 arson, eventually left the hospital. But her life was irrevocably destroyed: scarred, grieving the loss of seven family members (including children), and facing a future haunted by the man who once claimed to love her. Whether Adenuga ever faced a judge in a courtroom is still unknown.

For The Strange Archives, the case of Deji Adenuga poses a question that defies easy answers: When a killer escapes justice not once but twice, at what point does the blame shift from the individual to the system that failed to contain him? And how many more must die before that system finally wakes up?

The archives has no answer. Only the fire, and the silence that followed.

• Sources: This article is based on contemporaneous reporting from SundiataPost, The Sun Nigeria, Vanguard, Daily Trust, BBC News Pidgin, Freedom Online, PlusTV Africa, NaijaNews, and The Port City News, all dated April–June 2019. Direct quotations are attributed to official police statements or Adenuga’s own confessions.

Case remains open. No final court judgment has been reported as of 2026.