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.