… says ‘I want govt to help me kill him’
The family members of Mr. Ade Adepoju, popularly called Ogun, are finding it hard to come to terms with what must have come over their kinsman as he has gained notoriety in his neighbourhood for alleged physical abuse of his own children.
Adepoju’s penchant for maltreating his children has become legendary as he was alleged to have, late last year, beaten his son, Abayomi, a minor, to death over some “childish misdemeanor.”
The incident was said not to have been reported to the police, enabling Adepoju to escape prosecution.
But the abusive father is currently cooling his heels inside the cell of the Ifo Police Division for allegedly beating another child of his, a seven-year-old girl, Sarah to a state of coma, recently.
I decided to go and check him at his place of work. He still had the heart to even go to work immediately after. When I got there and asked him about my son; about the boy’s corpse, he just started beating me and chased me away
Our correspondent gathered that famished Sarah incurred the wrath of her belligerent father when, due to acute hunger, she was constrained to beg for food from a neighbour, who, out of pity and concern, gave her some chin-chin snacks.
For making him to look like an irresponsible father in the eyes of other neighbours, Adepoju had reportedly descended heavily on his seven-year-old daughter with a cane, giving her several strokes. When he was done with her, the little girl was left with a lacerated body. The crisscross of scars on her back, due to the beatings, would make any mother recoil.
According to neighbours at the family’s Olorun Ayo Street residence in Abata, Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State, the little girl would have given up the ghost if not for their quick intervention.
But unable to overlook the “grievous bodily harm” already done to the young girl by her father, the neighbours dragged him to the police in the area and lodged a complaint bearing on child abuse against him. The police immediately detained him pending the conclusion of investigations on the allegations made against the suspect.
Yet, Sarah, who now bears the injuries she sustained from the severe beating she got from her father, is still nursing some bitterness against him.
She alleged that her father, who beat one of her siblings to death last year, usually gave them cassava flour (garri) as breakfast and the only meal for a whole day, without bothering about what they took for lunch and dinner.
Sarah also claimed that she and her siblings had stopped going to school since their father could no longer afford the payment of their tuition fees.
On the incident that led to her father’s arrest and detention, she explained that she was very hungry that afternoon and when she didn’t have anyone else around to give her food, she approached a woman, fondly called Saudi, to give her some chin-chin snacks.
Sarah alleged that immediately her father saw her eating the chin-chin, he descended on her and beat her, black and blue, until she fainted and was later revived by neighbours.
She said, “My father beat me until I fainted, because I went to collect chin-chin from Saudi, when I was hungry. We eat only once a day and it is in the morning before our father goes out to work. Sometimes, we eat rice or drink garri in the morning. All I want the government to do for me is to help me to kill my father.”
Sarah’s mother, Temidale Olaremi, confirmed that her ex-husband, Ogun, beat one of their children, Abayomi, to death last year.
She said that she had to run away from his house after she discovered that Ogun had allegedly laced her with a charm in a bid to make good his threat to kill her.
The 40-year-old woman said that Ogun, who she got married to in 2003, was fond of beating her and their children, especially whenever they asked him for feeding money.
She also alleged that her ex-husband, who recently beat her daughter to coma, was in the habit of starving them of food and had once beaten her to the point that she fainted, and was revived later by neighbours.
She said, “I had to stop coming to his house when my children told me one night that I should not sleep at home; that their father had placed a piece of cloth on the bed and planned that after he had killed me, he would put the cloth on me and take me outside, and when people ask about me, he would say he didn’t know what killed me.
“I left him because he always beat me. It was when he beat me and I fainted, and he later laced me with a charm he put on my private part that I decided to leave him. He had beaten one of our children to death last year, around November. By then, I had left his house due to the way he usually beat me.
“I did not even know that my child had died in his hands, because I had left his house when it happened. He just called my siblings that the boy had died; so, I decided to come home and ask my children what happened to their brother, Abayomi; they said they just saw their father cover him up with cloth and carry him away and that he never brought him back home.”
I decided to go and check him at his place of work. He still had the heart to even go to work immediately after. When I got there and asked him about my son; about the boy’s corpse, he just started beating me and chased me away
Continuing, Adepoju’s estranged wife, said, “So, I decided to go and check him at his place of work. He still had the heart to even go to work immediately after. When I got there and asked him about my son; about the boy’s corpse, he just started beating me and chased me away.”
She also accused her ex-husband of usually stopping the children from eating any food item she bought for them, saying that he always threw them away. She added that her ex-husband’s disposition must have resulted in a situation where Sarah had to beg neighbours for food when she could no longer bear the hunger inflicted on the children by their father.
Olaremi said, “Since I left him, I usually come to check me children and whenever I come, I usually bring food for them. But when their father sees the food, he will take them and throw them away. The children have no longer been going to school since I left him two years ago. Sometimes I do come and sleep over to monitor my children.
“I heard how he beat Sarah to the point that she fainted. It was because the girl was so hungry that she decided to go and meet one woman in our neighborhood and told her she was hungry; the woman who had no food, decided to give Sarah chin-chin. When their father came back and saw her with the chin-chin, he started to beat her till she fainted. It was the people in our neighborhood that reported the case to the police.”
The mother of five, who also accused her ex-hubby of using diabolical means to cause the current situation where she had been carrying a pregnancy in the past two years, said Ogun caused so much trouble for her in her new matrimonial home that her new husband had to run away from her.
“As I am now, I’m carrying a pregnancy that is two years old for my new husband and every church that I go for prayers, they usually tell me that my ex-husband is the one behind my predicament. There are times Ogun will come to my new husband’s place and cause trouble, and when there was too much problem that one (new husband) decided to leave me,” she added.
When contacted to confirm Ogun’s arrest over the alleged physical abuse of his children, the Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said he was in a meeting. But he did not get back to our correspondent as of the time of filing this report.
