It must have been the prayer of Madam Olalonpe Ganiyu, a centenarian, to go to her grave in peace. But one of her grandchildren, 32-year-old Tajudeen Adekunle, would not allow that. What could have made the young man send his grandmother to such a bloody grave?
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. For instance, when, in early 2012, one of Olanlope’s daughters died, 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’s late daughter left behind and which she was taking care of is 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.
When Adekunle, 32, reportedly returned from his friends in the evening of Sunday, October 15, 2012, his grandmother called him and 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. So, on 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, however, 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. Within minutes, Adekunle’s voice was reportedly raised so high that it was heard many houses away.
However, nobody intervened in the quarrel between the two. It was reported that Adekunle was often treated with disdain in the neighbourhood ostensibly because of his attitude to both young and old.
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 the 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.
A neighbour of the deceased, one Muhammed, was reported to be the only one who dared challenge Adekunle when other neighbours fled the scene of the incident for fear of being attacked by Adekunle.
But Muhammed, armed with a big club, confronted Adekunle. The duo soon engaged in a fight and it was not long before Muhammed overpowered Adekunle. While that was going on, some neighbours dashed to the Yemetu Divisional Police Headquarters, to report the matter.
After this, Adekunle was arrested. He was later transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Iyaganku, where he is being currently detained.
According to him, he acted in self defence, 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.