Olalonpe
Ganiyu, until her death a couple of weeks ago, loved her relations to a
fault. Blessed with several children, Olanlope, said to be close to a
hundred years before her untimely death, showed great love and affection
for her kin.
When
one of her daughters died in early 2012, the elderly woman immediately
took all the late daughter’s children into her custody. Olanlope lived
at Yemetu in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Among
the children Olanlope took into custody and caring for is 32-Year-Old
Tajudeen Adekunle. But ever since Adekunle and his siblings had been
living with their grandmother, the elderly woman and her grandson were
said to have been dealing with each other like cat and dog. The no love
lost relationship between grandmother and grandson came to a head
recently when Adekunle allegedly hacked the old woman to death.
Evening
of Sunday, October 15, 2012, Adekunle’s grandmother advised him to have
a haircut as she was said not to be favourably disposed to his hair
style. This had actually been a source of disagreement between them
before that day.
The
next day, Monday, October 16, 2012, when the old woman realised that
Adekunle was not ready to do her billing, she reportedly refused to
prepare the man’s dinner that day. This did not go down well with
Adekunle who reportedly refused to change his ‘crazy’ hairstyle as
claimed by the grandmother.
Both grandmother and grandson soon reportedly began to exchange abusive words.
When
Adekunle realized that his grandmother was not backing down on her
demands and insisting that he would not eat any food in the house that
night if he failed to do what she wanted, he quickly dashed inside his
room and came out with a cutlass, threatening the old woman with it.
But
one elderly peacemaker, Busari Ogundeji, said to be a neighbour of the
feuding family who could not pretend not to have heard the altercation
between grandmother and grandson came around the house to intervene.
When he got to Olanlope’s house, Ogundeji reportedly met Adekunle
holding a cutlass and he reportedly joined Adekunle’s grandmother
rebuking the enraged man.
Ogundeji
was reported to have threatened that should Adekunle refuse to drop the
cutlass and do what his grandmother ordered him to do; he would make
him sweat by any means. At this point, Adekunle’s anger rose and he
wasted no time in striking Ogundeji with the cutlass.
The
cutlass reportedly inflicted deep cut on Ogundeji’s body and the
elderly man slumped and laid in his own blood. When Olanlope saw what
her grandson just did to a neighbour that had joined her to discipline
him, the old woman made a dash for the door.
But
Adekunle was faster. The hand holding the machete descended again but
this time on his grandmother’s neck. The centenarian, like her male
neighbour peace maker, also went down.
The
two elderly citizens did not make it to the hospital before they joined
their ancestors. Their corpses were later deposited at the Adeoyo
General Hospital mortuary. Though it was reported that Adekunle upon
realising what he had done made no efforts to flee the scene, he still
held tight to the cutlass daring anyone who would confront him.
Adekunle
was arrested. He was later transferred to the State Criminal
Investigation Department (SCID), Iyaganku, where he is being currently
detained.
Adekunle managed to speak with reporters about his action:
According
to him, he acted in self defense, saying that the threat not to give
him dinner made him behaved the way he did. “I severally warned Mama to
leave my hair alone but she refused to listen to me. What I did was the
best solution to her problem.
The
cutlass I used was the one we used to cut tree. It was kept inside the
house. I hit her with the cutlass just to let me be. I did not know she
would die. I just hit her with it to stop worrying me about my hair”,
Adekunle said with no sense of remorse.
Acting
Police Public Relations Officer of Oyo State Command, Joseph Oboyi,
confirmed Adekunle’s arrest over the death of his grandmother and the
man who came to make peace. Oboyi claimed that the accused would soon be
prosecuted upon completion of investigations into the dastardly act.
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