Our neighbour wants to kill his children – Residents of Lagos community pleads

Things have become so worrisome at 23, Fagbenro Street, off Randle
Avenue in Surulere area of Lagos that neighbours are pleading with
authorities to have the children of 37-year-old bus conductor, Segun
Oladoja, taken away from him. He might kill them soon, they said.
Our correspondent was alerted to the fate of the children who live
with their out-of-work father without their mother, a Togolese.
Our correspondent visited the area to find out what could be wrong on
Wednesday, but as soon as he left Oladoja's house, residents of the
area trooped out of their houses, saying they were worried about the
lives of the children owing to the brutal treatment Oladoja meted out
to them on daily basis.
One neighbour described Oladoja as "a wild animal" who would beat the
children mercilessly and dared anyone on the street to challenge him.
When our correspondent visited Oladoja's house, a bungalow fenced off
with metal barricades that was under lock and key, the children,
11-year-old Oyinkasola and eight-year-old Sogo, told our correspondent
that their father was asleep and when asked to wake him up, they said
they were afraid to do that.
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Eventually they roused him from sleep and he spoke with a source
through the metal barricades of the house.
"Whoever reported me to you only hates me. The residents of this area
don't like me," he began.
Oladoja explained that sometime in January, he fought with a petrol
station attendant in Surulere and made the mistake of destroying a
pump at the filling station.
"While we were trying to sort the issue out, a young man who witnessed
the whole scene was trying to settle the matter and I insulted him. I
did not know that he was a divisional police officer in the area. He
called his boys to arrest me and I was locked up for a week," he said.
According to Oladoja, while he was detained, his children did not know
where he was but after he was released, he got home to realise that
they had been taken in by a neighbour.
He said, "I thanked the family for taking in my children and feeding
them while I was in police custody but I realised that the children
refused to come back home. My neighbours started to use them as slaves
as well. But I was too tired to protest.
"But one day, I called them into the house and I quickly locked the
door. I beat them for leaving the house. Don't I have the right to
beat my own children? It is not like I beat them all the time."
Oladoja, whose face bore all the marks of brutality and reeked of
Indian hemp explained that the mother of the children, a Togolese, had
left him. Asked if the woman had made any attempt to check on the
welfare of her children, he said she had not.
"In December 2014, I got information that she was in Lagos. My younger
child (Sogo) was living with her at the time. I went there and when I
saw my son, I grabbed him and ran away. That is how he ended up with
me," he said.
One cannot miss the different dark marks on Sogo's face. On the right
side of the young boy's face is a fist-size scar that makes his
unsmiling face even sadder.
The older child, Oyinkansola, who also has dark marks on her face,
said she would like to go to school.
"We have not been to school for one year. All our friends are going to
school," the girl said.
The girl would not talk about the kind of abuse they were suffering in
the hands of their father because he was there.
But neighbours said the beating of the children on daily basis got so
worse at a time that he threatened to kill any neighbour who reported
him to the police or who complained about how he beat his children.
One neighbour, who pleaded anonymity, told the source , "To prevent us
from watching when he beat his children, he locks his doors and covers
his doors and windows with blinds.
"Out of pity for the children, my wife went to a school nearby to
negotiate school fees so that the children could go to school. But
their father did not release them for schooling.
"Some women he referred to as his wives had lived with him in the past
but they all ran away because he beat them all the time."
But Oladoja insisted that the only reason he could not send his
children to school was because he had no money.
Asked why he always locked the children inside the house, he explained
that he did not want neighbours to turn them against him.
Child rights activist, Mrs. Esther Ogwu, who was alerted to the
children's plight has reported the case at the National Agency for the
Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters.
She told the source,"This should be of great concern to the
authorities because the lives of the children are at stake.
"He even committed a crime by abducting the younger child from his
mother. We also have to find the children's mother to understand the
circumstance under which she left."
When our correspondent contacted the Zonal Commander of NAPTIP, Mr.
Joseph Famakin, he explained that as soon as he got a report about the
case, he sent his officials to rescue the children.
"The case does not actually fall under the purview of NAPTIP but
because children are involved, we had to take a prompt action. We can
transfer them into the custody of the Lagos State Ministry of Women
Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, which handles such cases later," he
said.