One night in June 2011, in a quiet
neigbourhood in Ajangbadi, Egbeda area of
Lagos, a 35-year old man sold his soul to the
devil. While the residents slept peacefully,
Adeleke Adetayo, who lived in a small
apartment with his two children, woke up his
first daughter, 13-year-old Bola (not real
name), and asked her to pull off her
pants.That night, Adeleke, a commercial bus
driver, raped his daughter as the little girl cried
in agony.
“Blood was coming out from my body. He
used a white singlet to clean it. I was crying
but he told me to stop so that the landlord
would not hear. My sister was in the room at
the time. My father started sleeping with my
younger sister last year,” the girl told our
correspondent as she looked down at her
toes.
Bola’s younger sister, Tolu (not real name), is
just 10 years old.
In any African culture, sleeping with one’s child
is the most abominable form of incest. But
once in a while, reports of such incidents come
up.
Such traumatic experience most times leaves
a very damaging effect on the abused child
and it may take substantial effort by
specialists to make such child live a normal
life.
The case of Adeleke’s daughters will bring
tears to many eyes.
Unlike their peers who have the love of their
parents and live normal lives of going to
school and coming back home to the warm
embrace of their parents, Bola and Tolu close
from school every day with the trepidation of
what awaits them at home.
They rarely have good food to eat as their
father barely provide for their feeding when he
comes back from his commercial driving job.
Their mother moved out in 2012, leaving them
at the mercy of a predatory father who rarely
had time for the children’s welfare.
The children’s mother, Kemi, spoke with our
correspondent on the telephone on Saturday.
Her voice shook as she expressed shock at
what her husband had done to their
daughters.
She told Saturday PUNCH, “I moved out last
year because it became clear I was not safe in
his house anymore. My children and I were
suffering. He was not taking care of us in
anyway. We rarely had food to eat.
“He would beat me at the slightest
provocation. When the beating was too
much and it got to the stage where my
mother was the one bringing food for us
to eat, I took my children to live with my
mother and I moved to Ibadan.
“But when my husband learnt about
where my children were, he went to take
them from there. I had no idea that while
I was with him, my husband was already
sleeping with his own children.
“I have not been able to eat anything
since yesterday that I was informed
about what that man did to my
daughters. I am really sad.”
Did Kemi starve her husband of sex when she
was still with him?
She replied, “Sir, you need to understand
that my husband was the kind of person
who wanted sex every day. After two
children, should we still be acting like
children when it comes to sleeping with
each other?
“He would ask for sex almost every day
and anytime I said no, he would beat me
up. Sometimes, he would pour urine on
my head just to humiliate me for turning
him down. He called me all sorts of
names.
“I was a hairdresser, but he said I should
stop the work, because he thought I was
prostituting myself in the process. He
called me prostitute at the slightest
provocation. All these were the reasons I
decided to leave him. I have seen my
daughters a number of times since I left
their father’s house, but they never told
me about what he was doing to them.”
When our correspondent spoke with Kemi, she
was still in Ibadan at the time, promising to
come for her children the following day.
Asked what she would say to her husband
when she saw him, Kemi said, “I don’t want to
see that man again. I just don’t want to lay
my eyes on him. That man is the devil
himself.”
On Monday, Kemi finally came for the children
who were kept in custody of the Ikotun Police
Division, pending the outcome of the test
conducted on them at the Igando General
Hospital and their father’s arraignment.
She broke down in tears as she pleaded to
take them with her.
When our correspondent saw the two children,
they did not seem to understand what was
happening.
The older victim spoke quietly, looking at her
toes the whole time.
The young girl explained that she did not know
what their father did with the white underwear
he used to clean her up when he forced himself
on her.
She said, “I don’t know what he does with the
singlet. Every time he rapes me, he uses the
singlet to clean me up. He does it like once in
a week.“Anytime I don’t allow him to do it, he
sleeps with my sister instead but he would not
give me money for food.” The older girl said
she was crying after her father refused to give
her money for feeding after turning him down
one particular day. A neighbour saw her and
asked what the problem was, she told the
neighbour the truth.
The neighbour placed an anonymous call to a
woman she knew in a not-for-profit
organisation, who in turn informed Mrs. Esther
Ogwu, founder of the Esther Child Rights
Foundation.
On Friday, June 5, 2013, the police were
informed and Adeleke was apprehended by
men of the Ikotun Police Division.
Adeleke did not utter a single word of denial.
“It is true I was sleeping with them.
Sometimes, I just have the urge to do it. When
I cannot control myself, I sleep with them,” he
said in a tape recorded by the NGO officials
who first confronted him.
These were the words Adeleke offered in
defence when he was asked by Ogwu, the
police and his landlord, why he slept with his
two young daughters.
Our correspondent visited Adeleke’s landlord,
Mr. Amos Omooye, a pastor, who
magnanimously gave an apartment in his
house to Adeleke and his wife to live in for
free.
Omooye told our correspondent,
“Adeleke has
been living in my house for the last 13 years. I
never suspected he could do something as
heinous as this.
“I had no idea he was doing that to her
daughters whom I christened. They were
born in this house.
“During one of the evangelical outreach
programme of my church years ago, I
met Adeleke and his wife living in a very
terrible uncompleted building. I had to
take them in to live in my house without
paying. They have been living here ever
since.”
Omooye said Adeleke once made effort to
get a rented apartment, but was kicked
out by the landlord of that house
because he and his wife fought
endlessly.
The pastor said, “I took them back in
when they were kicked out. I could
probably have seen signs of what he was
doing to his daughters if not because of
a terrible illness I had since 2011. I was
bedridden for much of the last two years,
which is the period he was sleeping with
the kids.
“But I recall that in the last few months,
the older daughter was always crying. I
called her one day and asked what was
wrong. She said the father was treating
them badly. I asked if the two girls
wanted to see their grandmother, they
said yes and I facilitated a visit to the
woman.
“They later came back with clothes, food
and other things. I never for once thought
that the children were going through
something that terrible. When the police
came here to arrest Adeleke, I asked if it
was true he was sleeping with his
children, he said ‘yes’. I could not believe
it, I was shocked.”
Ogwu, who has been handling the children’s
case since Adeleke’s act was unearthed, told
our correspondent that the mother had initially
been apologetic about taking custody of her
children instead of them being handed over to
government officials for rehabilitation.
She told our correspondent, “Even though I
have seen cases like this before, it still
surprises me that with the abundance of
brothels around, a man can still take his own
children and rape them, not once but over a
period of two years.
“When I asked him why he did it, Adeleke
simply said, ‘I just like doing it with them
anytime I have the urge’. I was shocked. At the
moment, we cannot rule out the option that he
probably was sleeping with the children for
fetish reasons.
“It is also sad that the mother, who could have
noticed what was happening to the children,
did not when she was still with the father. You
have to understand that the rape started when
she was still with the man.
“This is why parents need to maintain a
cordial relationship and communication with
their children so they will have the courage to
confide in them.
“My organisation only counsels parents on
ways to prevent the abuse of their children, we
usually leave the victims’ counseling part to
the government. This is why we are planning
to hand these children over to the
government.”
Ogwu said counseling helps to improve the
chances of young victims like Adeleke’s
children to live normal lives.
But she added that even at that, the memory
of the molestation they had gone through
would likely live with them for the rest of their
lives.
Police Public Relations Officer in the state,
Ngozi Braide, said Adeleke’s case had been
transferred to the State Criminal Investigation
Department.
“He is going to be charged to court as soon as
possible,” she said.
Adeleke was indeed charged to court on two
counts of defilement in a family court at Ikeja
Chief Magistrate’s Court, Lagos.
Before his case was assigned, our
correspondent met a woman, said to be
Adeleke’s girlfriend at the court premises.
“To say the truth, when I asked Adeleke if he
indeed did it, he admitted he did it. But what
has happened has happened. The devil can
use anybody,” the woman said.
Nigeria has not set up a database for
paedophiles as is the case in some developed
countries. This may make it difficult to track
multiple offenders who are often let off the
hook after out-of-court settlement by families.
A report by The PUNCH in April revealed that
victims’ families often opt to settle out of court
in order to put the shame of the incident
behind them.
Unlike the often-reported cases of children
being raped by outsiders or neighbours,
Adeleke preyed on his vulnerable daughters.
It may never be known the extent of the
damage that has been done to the lives of
Bola and Tolu.
In the meantime, the family court has ordered
that the children should be transferred to a
juvenile home at Idi-Araba, Lagos for a period
of three months.
Punch
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