Please, help me. Do not allow my brother-in-law to get away with what he did to my daughter. If I had enough money, I would have sued him. But since I don’t have money, please, help me plead my cause. I am begging you. I am a widow with five children. My husband of 24 years died six years ago.
24 years of marriage is enough to have grown up children to take care of me even if my husband had to die the time he did, but I never had a child until after 10 years of marriage. My daughter came after 10 years of marriage and the others came in quick succession as if we had never had a delay.
As a couple then, we blessed God for these gifts, not knowing thatmy husband would leave us sooner than expected to the vices of the devil and his enemies who he thought were his friends and family. All the years that we were married and waiting on the Lord, he took care of his family members, nephews and nieces.
I was a primary school teacher in a small town in Ekiti, while my husband was a headmaster in another school in a nearby village. He loved education; he always spoke of how he would love our children to have good education. So when ours did not come in time, he trained his family and their children and his wish was always that even if he could not train his own kids, those he trained would. This was why after my husband’s burial, his family decided that my daughter should go to the city and live with her uncle; my husband’s youngest sibling who lives and works in Lagos with his own family.
My husband saw him through school and he promised to reciprocate by sending my daughter to school. I never liked him or his wife, but the other family members and the desire for a good life for my daughter prevailed. I allowed her to go when she finished secondary school, which was two years after the death of my husband Just like her father, Feiykemi is very brilliant; she passed her SSCE without a single “C”.
All her grades were As and Bs, yet when she got to Lagos, her uncle who promised heaven and earth neither sent her to school immediately nor registered her in a coaching class where she would be prepared for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) as I was told. I didn’t want to interfere with her life with her uncle, so I never visited, but she was sending messages home and when one of my relatives who normally checked on her bought a phone for her it was easy contacting her.
I later learnt there were no plans to send my daughter to school; she was used as a housemaid in her uncle’s house. When I raised this issue with the eldest member of their family, he sent for my late husband’s brother (Dele). He came home and told a lot of lies; one of which included the fact that my daughter’s grades were from a village school and she could not gain admission to a city higher institution with what she has.
I knew it was a lie, I tried to raise this fact that two other girls from our village with results not as good as my daughter’s are at the University of Ibadan, but the old man’s argument was that Dele is as good as Feyikemi’s father and he has every right to train her. I would have taken care of my daughter and she would have been in the higher institution by now. Another issue is that her uncle was harassing her sexually, but she did not tell me.
Dele forcefully had sex with my daughter several times, especially on days when his wife, who is a nurse, was away on night duty. He got Feyikemi pregnant and when his wife found out, Feyikemi told her that her husband was responsible for her pregnancy; he denied and according to her she could no longer speak after her uncle hit her on the chest. She was pushed out to the street with a three- -month-old pregnancy.
She slept on the street for several nights, unable to speak or identify herself until a woman who attended a spiritual church found her hungry and almost dead in an uncompleted building. She took her to her church and after series of prayer session, she was able to narrate what happened to her.
Meanwhile, Dele and his wife had been to the village to tell everyone who cared to listen that Feyikemi ran away from their house when they discovered that she was pregnant and she could not say who was responsible for her pregnancy.
During the two-week search for Feyikemi, I almost died, but I kept praying that God would take care of her wherever she was. All along, their story did not convince me and some of the elderly women in the village. In fact, one of my friends was afraid that probably they had use my daughter for rituals and they came to lie.
We visited spiritualists and churches and we were assured that she would be found. I was almost losing hope when one evening, she walked in accompanied by two women and a man; the Shepherd of the Celestial Church where she was taken care of, his wife and the woman who found her in the uncompleted building. I broke down and wept when my daughter relayed all that happened to her.
I quickly sort Baba Agba’s audience before those who came with my daughter left. They relayed what happened to Baba before they left. Baba immediately sent for Dele and his wife, but up till now, they are yet to come to the village. In fact, some of our people sent to Lagos to see Dele and his wife, but they haven’t been able to see him.
His wife sent a message to Baba that he travelled out of the country. It is over two months now that Feyikemi came back to the village with her uncle’s child growing inside her. We all have to look after her, because she had attempted suicide twice. Dele has destroyed my daughter’s life and he is somewhere in Lagos enjoying life with his wife and children.
I want justice, Aunty Taiwo. Sometimes, I even feel his family members are trying to shield him from the wrath of the law and justice. Several times, my family members have taken steps to have him arrested in Lagos, but Baba and others were always saying that we cannot do such except he comes and says his own side, as we cannot nail him based on Feyikemi’s words alone.Yet he has refused to show up.
Please, help me. Mrs. F Ade, Ekiti State.
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