TRUE-LIFE STORIES WITH FUNMILOLA SOTUMINU
THE journey from Lagos to Jebba was a very long one. But as long as the journey was, all that was on my mind was to unravel the mystery behind my wife’s strange behaviour and why she had to take a month-old baby through that type of stress.
The senior police officer, who was with me in the car, tried to force some facts out of the matron, but she did not say much. She only said that my wife had called her to accompany her to take care of the baby and that she had never been to Jebba before until the previous day when they embarked on the journey.
However, just before we arrived at Jebba, she became really jittery. She was to be directing the driver, but was usually jolted out of deep thought whenever there were different directions and we wanted to be sure of which one to take.
I also became very worried and started joining all that had been happening together. I prayed for the safety of my daughter, being my first fruit.
At last, we arrived close to the house and the officer gave her back her phone to call my wife that she was around the corner. It was on speaker. My wife asked if the urine was intact and she said yes.
Immediately we got to the house, a yellow, almost isolated bungalow in the outskirts of the town, the nurse came out of the car and attempted to run away. The other officers in the other car quickly caught her and held her close to their car, so as not to arouse suspicion around the house. Then we asked her where my wife and the baby were. She said we would have to go through the back.
Unfortunately for my wife, she did not expect any other person apart from her friend, the nurse. So, we met her sitting in between the legs of a man, old enough to be her father. He was sitting on the chair, while she was sitting on the floor.
He was in a pair of shorts while my wife only tied a wrapper around her chest. Beside them, looking almost dead, with palm oil rubbed all over her body, was my helpless daughter. I almost passed out. It took some seconds for them to notice the intrusion. When they did, my wife jumped up and started shaking. She said she could explain the whole situation to me; that it was not what it looked like.
At this point, I allowed the security operatives, who had called for reinforcement, to do their job. They refused to allow the man to enter his room to dress properly, so that he would not have access to any ‘juju.’
The senior officer asked him what he wanted to use my urine for and why he was keeping another man’s wife and daughter without his permission. The man refused to talk and wanted to show that he had some powers, but when the other guy behind the officer hit him with his gun, he said he was just trying to save a bad situation; that we should ask my wife what led her to him in the first place.
He said they should leave his sister alone because she only tried to help my wife secure her home. It was at that point I found out that the matron was actually the spiritualist’s sister.
All the while, my wife was crying, saying we had to first save the baby before explanations. The officer asked the man what the exact problem was with the baby and he said it was a long story, that they should release him and hand over the urine to him so that he could save the baby first.
He said he only needed to wash the baby’s head with her biological father’s urine and she would be healed. There was no urine with us, but the officer advised that I should do as they said because even God said we should give to Caesar what belongs to him.
So I urinated in a bottle and brought it back. The man then told my wife where to get a certain black soap in his room because he was not allowed to go anywhere. She went in to bring it and he started his incantations.
My wife put the baby in a bowl and the man started bathing her from the head, with the water that had been mixed with my urine. Suddenly, the baby started gasping for breath and then kept quiet. I was afraid, but did not want to think of the worst.
Yet, I went close and tested her. She was gone. I started shaking. Before I knew what was happening, the police officers had bundled the spiritualist and the matron into their vehicle. My wife was wailing and rolling on the floor, but I restrained myself so hard from hitting her.
The officer asked if I wanted her to be in my own vehicle but I told him to put her in the same vehicle with her fellow murderers. I was running away from staying close to her so I would not commit murder myself. There were still very many things that were not clear to me. But I wanted to get out of that town to seek for answers.
First, the senior officer with us, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said we had to register the case at the nearest police station before transferring it to Lagos. After all the formalities, we headed for Lagos and arrived at about 12am.
Of course, all through the journey, I had briefed my aunt and she, in turn, had informed my wife’s people. They were all waiting for us at the police station. My friends had also contacted the AIG of the zone, who made sure that the officers did not play pranks with the case.
They treated it as high priority. That night, none of us slept. A close friend, a deputy director in the State Security Service, had also been waiting for us. The first person that gave up secrets was the matron.
The security operatives had hardly touched her when she opened the can of worms. She started her story from when my wife started working in the hospital and revealed all what led to the hardworking nurse’s death. It was like a horror movie…
To be continued…
