- ‘I can’t say she didn’t kill him’
Following the expulsion and banishment of his family from the Baruwa community in Ipaja, Lagos, for the alleged killing of his 20-year-old sibling by his mother and the subsequent dumping of his corpse inside a septic pit, popularly called soakaway, in the
adjoining house, the younger brother of the deceased, Samson Adekunle, has explained why he assisted his mother in committing the alleged crime.
Samson, who spoke with The Point had been forcibly ejected from
their house by angry residents of the community, said that fear of opposition from family members made him and his mother to take the decision to dispose the corpse of his late brother,Kayode, in their neighbour’s soakaway.
He explained that they were constrained to consider taking such a
strange action, because they were of the conviction that they would not be allowed to bury the corpse of the deceased within the premises of the house owned by a relation.
Samson said from their previous experience, the family was prevented from burying their grand-mother, who died sometime ago in the house, within the premises of the property. He said it was to avoid the hullabaloo that greeted their earlier attempt to
bury a family member in the premises of the property that he and his mother decided to do away with the corpse of his deceased brother in the manner they did.
Samson said, “We are not happy over what we did because he was
sick before he died. He was my elder brother, though I cannot ascertain his age. When I came back from work and I confirmed him dead, my mother suggested that we should dispose of him inside our neighbour’s soakaway, since we could not bury him in our compound, because of possible opposition from family members.
“She said this because the house is owned by our father’s younger
brother. When our grandmother died and we attempted to bury her in the compound, we faced a lot of problems from the family, and in order not to encounter the same situation again, our mother suggested we should dump him inside the soakaway and
I assisted her.”
He, however, said in spite of the rumour making the rounds within the community that his mother might have deliberately killed his deceased elder brother, no one had the evidence
that she actually committed such a heinous crime.
Samson claimed that before hisdeath, his elder brother, who was ill for a long time before his recent death, was also epileptic. “I cannot say our mother killed my brother and I cannot say she was not the one, because before I left home that morning, my brother was still alive only for me to be called to come home on time that he had died. And when I got home, I confirmed that he had truly died, and immediately, my mother told me that we should dispose of him in order to avoid what happened to us when our grandmother died,” he said.
Samson also confessed that he and his mother actually took the deceased’s body from the house and threw him in the pit, hoping that nobody would get to know that such a thing took place.
He also told The Point that he was later arrested over the matter by police operatives from Alagolo Police Station, while some residents also apprehended his mother.
But residents of the Ishaga Olaogun community accused the mother of the decease of killing her first son, before throwing his corpse inside the pit.
According to some of them, who spoke with The Point, the woman allegedly resolved to kill her first son after expending huge sums of money on his treatment for an undisclosed disease for several months without any sign of his health improving.
The Point also gathered that she must have taken the decision to end the life of the 20-year-old, because of the “shame and disgrace” her epileptic son had brought to the family in the community.
A resident, Ifedayo Kazeem, said, “When we did our own findings on the incident, we realised that the woman must have killed the boy because of certain reasons. First, the boy had been sick for months and they didn’t have the financial capacity to take him to the hospital, while the woman had spent all she had on him. So, there is a possibility that she decided to end the boy’s life in order to end what she had been going through.
“I am saying this because when we caught the deceased’s brother, Samson, he confessed that his brother had not died before he left the house in the morning of that day, but he was pronounced dead by his mother later the same day. He said he was at work when his mother called him that Kayode had died
and he was surprised, but since he didn’t see her killing him, he could not accuse her.”
Another member of the community, who simply identified himself
as Mukaila, said he was sure the woman ended the epileptic boy’s life, because she was always ashamed of having such a child.“That mama definitely killed her son before throwing him in that pit.
She was always ashamed of the boy because he was epileptic. And I believe she must have taken his life because of that,” he said.
Explaining how the residents discovered the boy’s corpse inside
the ‘soak away’, Mukaila told The Point that the stench from the corpse had enveloped the community and the development prompted the youths to trace its source to one of the ‘soakaways’ within the neighbourhood, where they discovered the deceased’s corpse.
He said, “After we had been disturbed for days by a foul smell
within the neighbourhood, on Saturday Saturday we decided to open a soakaway beside Iya Fali’s (Mrs. Bose Adekunle) house. When we opened it, we discovered something was inside it. At first, we thought it was a goat. But when we gave it a closer look, we realised it was a human being. Immediately, we informed the landlord of the house that has the soak away before we moved to Alagolo Police Station, where we reported the case.
“After much pondering on the identity of the deceased, one man
suggested it might be the sick Kayode, because he had not been seen outside for some time now. Having heard this, we stylishly called the woman’s daughter, named Falilat, to come and see the corpse and she confirmed it to be that of her brother.”
I cannot say our mother killed my brother and I cannot say she
was not the one because before I left home that morning, my brother was still alive only for me to be called to come home on time that he had died.
He added that but to the surprise of everyone, they met the woman on her trying to escape, while they were returning from the police station, where they had gone to lodge the report.
“We arrested her and handed her over to the police. She then confessed that she and her other son deposited the corpse in the soakaway at night after the boy had died,” he said The Point observed that the family house occupied by the Adekunles had been deserted and locked up since the incident.
Further findings by The Point revealed that the family had been ejected from the house by the community. It was leant that the woman and her children were driven out of the house in the night by residents of the community with the aid of the dreaded ‘Oro’ cult group, who were said to have performed certain rituals.
Meanwhile, police officers attached to Alagolo Police Station in the Baruwa community have been accused of allegedly conniving with some community leaders to sweep the alleged crime under the
carpet.
A resident, who pleaded anonymity, said, “The police later handed off the case after they had been given certain amount of money.
“They actually did it to save the community from the wrath of the
law, and that is why they decided to release the corpse to them as well as the woman and her other son.” But the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, Dolapo Badmos, said her office had already been informed about the case and investigations had commenced on it.
“Already my office is aware of the case, but I will confirm it further while our investigation is ongoing,” Badmos told The Point.
