Women group protests against lecturer accused of incest

The Association of Chief Executive Women Officers, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), based in Ondo State, is demanding for prosecution of a 50-year-old lecturer at Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Dr Adeseke Adefolaju, for allegedly having carnal knowledge of his two little daughters. Adefolaju, a senior lecturer at the department of theatre and media arts, was […]

The Association of Chief Executive Women Officers, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), based in Ondo State, is demanding for prosecution of a 50-year-old lecturer at Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Dr Adeseke Adefolaju, for allegedly having carnal knowledge of his two little daughters.
Adefolaju, a senior lecturer at the department of theatre and media arts, was accused of having sex with minors and perpetrating violence against his estranged wife and mother of the victims, Mrs Adeseke Folake, an Akure-based civil servant.
But the suspect said that he would not join issues with his former wife, adding that he would wait for police to conclude their investigation before telling his own side of the story.
The victims are Doyin (9) and her younger sister Dolapo (7), a sickle cell anemia patient, who was in critical condition at the time of filing this report.
Doyin is a primary four pupil while Dolapo is in class one. They both attend school in the Akure metropolis.
The association, in a petition it sent to the Ondo State Commissioner for Police, Mrs Hilda Ibifuro-Harrison, dated: September 20, 2016, Ref: OBOT/WAAC/01/60, titled: “Urgent: save our soul appeal to prevent prepubescent children from further sexual violation from their pedophilia father,” accused the suspect of various misdemeanors, recklessness and violence against his former wife.
The maltreatment, said the petition, signed by the NGOs’ counsel and principal of W. Aladedutire & Co. Chamber, Chief Omojola Ola, had caused damage to the wife.
The petition alleged that the lecturer had sexual intercourse with every house help “employed by his wife and even aided one of them to procure abortion right inside their matrimonial home.”
The petition read in part: “It was in the process of her parents moving her from one hospital to the other, that one of the medical doctors reported the case of domestic violence to the Akure Chapter of FIDA for intervention.
“FIDA invited the couple for settlement but when the man refused to succumb to reason, they sent the case to the Ondo State Family Court, Akure, presided over by Chief Magistrate Mrs Adegoroye.
“The situation subsequently led to a divorce between the couple, though the woman had protested the granting of the children to stay with the suspect because of his antecedents.” 
The suspect was alleged to have refused paying the school fees of the children.
According to the petition, the suspect, in March 2016, went to pick the kids to spend their vacation with him, saying: “When the girls went to sleep in another room, he physically went to carry them back to his bed.”
It alleged that the suspect used to intoxicate the children with beer at night, adding that on one occasion, in the morning, Dolapo woke on his bed and saw blood on her night gown and pant and when she told her father, he directed the older girl to clean her up, and he took her to hospital.
When the doctor asked her how often their father gave them beer to drink before sleeping, she refused to say because, it was alleged, he had warned them that if they spoke, they would die.
The petition accused the suspect of using whatever means he had to hide his alleged crime, saying: “He is always thinking ahead and taking steps to cover his criminal tracks at every stage.
The mother of the girls said that she told her daughters that nothing bad would befall them if they spoke about their ordeals while they stayed with their father.”
The suspect’s wife said that the children were taken to the Ondo State Specialist Hospital, Akure, for medical examination and treatment, where medical reports showed that the time it took to bring the girls to the hospital had erased evidence of recent semen allegedly deposited in their bodies. Though, the reports said that the girls had lost their hymen.
The chairman of the association, Mrs Folake Esan, reiterated the commitment of the civil society organisations and other human right groups to ensure justice was achieved in the matter.
Esan disclosed that the Commissioner for Police Ibifuro-Harrison ordered the arrest of the suspect after several attempts to bring him to justice proved abortive. 
However, the suspect and father of the minors, Adefolaju, told our correspondent, when contacted on phone, that he wouldn’t join issues with his former wife, Folake.
He said: “The investigation is still ongoing and so it will be wrong for me to speak. I shouldn’t start joining issues with her when the investigation team has not concluded its investigation.
“It is better I allow the investigation to end. If I have the report, that is the best time for me to react. I will definitely react.
“I think, as a learned person, I shouldn’t jump the gun. I should allow the investigation team to handle the case very well so that at the end of the day, by the time I will speak, people will be ready to listen.”
The Ekiti State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr Femi Joseph, said that the suspect was arrested but he was released on bail after interrogation. 
Joseph said that the police had started investigation into the allegations and would not hesitate to bring the suspect to book if he was found guilty.