Different emotions revealed in
residents of Ibadan, Oyo State about Muyideen Opeyemi Arowolo 29, who killed
his wife and son by setting them on fire when the news of his arrest broke out on
December 27, 2013.
Though it was reported that he had
been arraigned in court on Thursday, January 23, and remanded in prison
custody, Crime Reports held an interview with him a day after his arrest.
Background
I am from Saki in Oke Ogun area of
Oyo State but I was born in Ibadan. I am a bricklayer. I met Felicia in 2006
and we got married. I am a Muslim and she was a Christian but that never
created any problem between us. We had another child apart from Gbolahan. His
name was Abeeb but he died in 2012 during an illness.
What led to the quarrel between us
We had separated from each other in
February 2013. But when she was sick in October, I came from Lagos where I was
working to take care of her, after which I returned. She called me again and
said she was being given drips. I came and also visited her family members to
inform them of her illness, bringing it to their notice that I was going back
to Lagos since we were separated.
They did not accept this, saying that
they were going to demand her from me if anything should happen. It was when
the family members got there that they discovered that she committed an
abortion. She confessed that she got pregnant for one Adisa at Beere and she
decided to abort it. I called her attention to the fact that the boy was much
younger than her but she said it did not matter since he had money to take care
of her.
When she became well, the family
settled our misunderstanding and we came back together. Not long after, in
December 2013, she got pregnant, and I informed those who mediated in our
quarrel. She later decided to abort the pregnancy without my consent and I also
informed them and her close friend.
I later learnt from our neighbours
that she said she just met a man who promised her a lot of things which she did
not want to miss if he should discover she was pregnant. It was her adulterous
ways that led to our separation in the first instance.
What happened then was that I
travelled to go and work and didn’t tell her when I would return. By the time I
came back, I met a man in the room who came to sleep with her. She even told
some boys to come and kill me in the house but one of our neighbours told the
boys to go away because it was a couple’s quarrel.
Not long after she committed abortion
in December 2013, I noticed that each time I urinated, it was blood that was
coming out. I told her that I caught the disease from her because I didn’t
sleep with any other woman, saying that I would bring herbal concoction to
treat her and myself. She asked me to treat myself and leave her alone. I went
to tell her friend, Iya Fatimoh.
About five days later, I discovered
that my manhood started reducing in size. I was a well-endowed man. I also lost
erection and this made me to be so worried. But she told me that she
deliberately inflicted me with the disease. When I asked for the solution, she
replied that the only solution was for me to go and die. I left the house to
take care of myself at my mother’s place but was told she had gone to Ilorin in
Kwara State. I came back home and we started quarrelling. Our neighbour came
and she repeated that I should go and die. I pulled down my trousers and showed
everybody what was left of my manhood.
On the money his wife accused him of
stealing
I did not steal the money; I only
collected her money, N8,000, from the woman opposite our room. I told the woman
that I would explain to my wife that I used N5,000 to buy herbal concoction,
but immediately I stepped in, she started shouting and created a scene. It is
true I threw a stone at her just to keep her shut when she started calling me a
jailbird. This was because I felt she had said too much. She went upstairs and
started shouting again.
An elderly neighbour downstairs asked
some boys to go after me but I ran away. Later, I came back and a neighbour, an
Aafa, told me to run away because there was plan against me. That was why I
used padlock on each room to stop our co-tenants from coming out to apprehend
me. The back door on the ground floor was not locked, so I went upstairs. My
wife came and started shouting to people that she had apprehended me, unknown
to her that I had already locked everybody in.
I poured the petrol that was in the
keg I held on her and she left me to go inside. As she moved near the lantern,
she went ablaze. There is nothing I want to say at this moment that will
justify my action. When I learnt that she died, I felt very bad.
Why my son was involved
We were in the passage upstairs when
I poured the petrol on her and as she entered, she shouted for our next door
neighbour’s help. My son was also there, shouting that the neighbour should
bring water to quench the fire on his mother’s body. I never knew he went
inside to meet his mother because I left the place then. If I had known he
would do that, I would have taken him away from the house.
On his statement that she would not
witness January 2014
It is true I said so but that was
because she said I should go and die.
What sent him to prison
I will not say I actually went to
prison. What happened was that in 2012, a friend of mine at Isale Aafa area of
Ibadan introduced money ritual to me and I said I was not interested. They
started threatening my life so I went to Idi Aro Police station to lodge a
report. I was told to go back and mingle with them so that they could be
arrested. When the police eventually arrested those people, they claimed I was
part of them and was just deceiving the police.
The case was charged to court and I
was granted bail but when I could not fulfil bail conditions, I was kept in the
prison until my sureties came. When we were quarrelling, my late wife mentioned
it and I replied that I went to prison with her brother, just to disparage her
in the presence of others.
Why he did not consider his son
I told her to let me take my son and
we should go our separate ways, but she replied that she did not meet any child
in my house and would not leave her child. I didn’t intend to kill my son; he
was our first child and only living child. The second child we had together,
Abeeb, died in 2012. I had plans that when Gbolahan would clock seven years, I
would do some things for him. He was once living with my mother but his mother
went to take him when the second child died, as she accused my mother of
killing the child.
On issue of contracting Sexually
Transmitted Disease
My male organ is no longer working. I
don’t experience erection again and it has reduced drastically in size. I can
show you to let you assess it yourself (pulling off his trousers); you can take
the picture if you like. Now when I urinate, the blood that comes out is not as
thick as before. I have never taken bath in stream and I have not slept with
any woman except my wife. I don’t even have a single girlfriend.
On the allegation of being a hemp
smoker
I have never taken marijuana in my
life. I don’t take cigarette or alcohol.
What he wants from government
If the government should look at the
enormity of my offence, I know there is no amount of pleading that would bring
forgiveness my way. But whatever the government feels my family should do to
compensate my late wife’s family, and to replace the damaged properties, it
should please consider that. People should realize that even if I was
remote-controlled spiritually to do what I did, it would not have been possible
if we did not allow our differences to become open.
I plead that the government should
have mercy on me. I already have a disease I am battling with. But if it is not
possible for me to be forgiven, I have no choice but to come to terms with
whatever becomes my fate.
I regret my action because I never
knew it would end tragically like that. That was why I decided to give myself
in. I was the one who went to my family members on Friday that I wanted to turn
myself in to the police. My brother-in-law was called and he agreed that I
should turn myself in. He was the one who called the police from Mokola
Division so that they could lead me through Beere area to prevent my being
lynched by area boys.
I have been within the city since the
occurrence but I did not know that my wife and child died. I called one Aafa at
the back of our house and he told me that they were still in hospital. It was
when I got to police station on Friday (January 17) that I learnt that they
were dead. I was staying within Galaxy, Oke Are and Agala areas. Even, my
friends came and suggested that I should run to another part of the country but
I refused.
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