A 62-year-old retired lecturer, Pa Ayoola Oyesiji, has been arrested by policemen from Agugu Division of the Oyo State Police Command for drowning his two-year-old stepdaughter in a bucket of water, thereby killing her.
The incident, which occurred at Atipe area of Ibadan in
the evening of Friday, 16 Novemeber, was reported to have been the aftermath of
a quarrel between the man and his 22-year-old wife, Barakat Akeem, over sex.
The young woman, who is currently nursing a
two-month-old baby for the retired lecturer, was said to have given birth to
the deceased child before she married him in December 2011.
Sunday Tribune gathered that the woman lived in the
man’s family house at Atipe area, and that the man used to come there to visit
and to carry out his conjugal duties.
However, things were said to have gone awry, when the
man, who came to his wife on Friday, approached her for sex, and the woman
refused, claiming that her baby was still young, in addition to the fact that
she was in her menstruation.
Pa Oyesiji, who was said to have retired from the
University of Ilorin in June, reportedly got infuriated and tried to pull his
wife back into the room, but the woman fled, dropping her wrapper in the
process.
Her two-year-old daughter, Aishat Mohammed, was said to
be sleeping in the room then with her two-month-old baby being tended by a
neighbour.
The woman reportedly raised the alarm which made
neighbours to rush out of their rooms.
She pleaded with them to help her bring her daughter,
Aishat, out of the room where her husband had remained.
However, their attempts to do so proved abortive as Pa
Oyesiji refused to open the door, a development that resulted in the neighbours
forcing it open.
After a quick scan through the room, the little girl
could not be located.
This development got the mother and the neighbours
agitated over what could have befallen her.
However, they were shocked when they later discovered
the body of Aishat in a half-filled bucket of water in the unlit room.
As the news spread in the neighbourhood, an irate mob
was said to have descended on the retired lecturer with different objects,
beating him almost to the point of death, until he was rescued by a team of
policemen from Agugu Division.
Sunday Tribune gathered that Pa Oyesiji is an habitual
drunkard and was already drunk when he approached his wife for sex, another
reason which reportedly made the young woman to have rebuffed his advances on
the fateful day.
Though he admitted that he was drunk, Pa Oyesiji told
Sunday Tribune that he only wanted to prevent the girl from running about, by
putting her in a bucket, adding that he did not know that the bucket contained
water.
When reminded that the baby was already asleep when he
reportedly picked her from where she was, the man could not put up any further
defence.
It was learnt that the police were yet to inform the
man about the girl’s death, so that he would not harm himself.
He was also taken to a private hospital for treatment
of the injuries he sustained in his eye during the mob action.
Oyesiji, a holder of MBBS degree, also lectured at the
University of Ibadan before transferring his services to the University of
Ilorin in 1996.
Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of
administration, Mr. Clement Adoda, confirmed the story, saying that the remains
of the girl had been deposited in a mortuary for autopsy.
He added that the case would be transferred to
the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Iyaganku for further
investigations.