The traditional ruler of Ejigbo in Lagos, southwest Nigeria, Oba Morufu Ojoola, has reportedly gone into hiding following attempts by the police to arrest him in connection with the torture of two women accused of stealing pepper at Ejigbo Market.
The two women, a mother and her step-daughter, were stripped, tortured and pepper was poured into their private parts.
After the video of the incident was uploaded on the internet, it sparked widespread outrage, with women’s group calling for probe of the barbaric act.
Following the outcry, the state Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko, ordered the arrest of the perpetrators and invited Oba Ojoola to his office for explanation about the incident which occurred in his domain in February last year but was made public late in the year.
Sources told P.M.NEWS that the Oba has failed to report at the commissioner’s office at Ikeja, Lagos. Rather, he was said to have gone into hiding.
P.M.NEWS also gathered that the Oba has not been attending to visitors at his palace since the police boss invited him.
The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of the Ejigbo Station, CSP Oliver Abbey has also run into trouble for failing to arrest the culprits and also produce the monarch and the market leaders at the commissioner’s office.
Consequently, Abbey has been redeployed from Ejigbo division. The market leaders are also said to have gone underground to avoid being arrested.
Meanwhile, the President-General of Market Men and Women, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, has ordered the leaders of the market to produce the culprits or have their market shut.
Mrs. Tinubu-Ojo, who visited the market with her team earlier this week, said she was not satisfied with the claims by the market leaders that the incident did not take place there.
“We will have to shut down the market till those who committed the crime are produced,” she said.
The palm-wine tapper, whose wife and step-daughter were stripped and sodomised had said, during a recent television programme, that he was forced to bail the two women with N50, 000 after they were tortured.
First, he was able to raise N20,000 and promised to give them the balance. He alleged that the Baba-Oja (leader) of the market came to him to get the balance days later.
He said he stood helplessly watching his wife and daughter as they were tortured by the men and that by the time they were through, they had ruptured his daughter’s left breast and blinded one of her eyes.
He said while his wife was battling for survival, his daughter later died. He also said he was sent out of the house they were living before the incident happened.
His sodomised wife, who had to relocate from Lagos as a result of the incident, said she was at home on the day it occurred.
She said the men stormed the house in search of her step-daughter and that she ran to call her husband.
By the time they got to the market, the men had stripped her step-daughter and on seeing her she said, “they removed my wrapper, forcefully tore my panties, opened my legs and poured pepper into my vagina.”
She said she was beaten mercilessly before her husband could raise money to bail them.
The DPO of Ejigbo police station had told a panel of the State House of Assembly that all efforts to investigate the case had proven abortive as nobody was willing to divulge information.
He also said he invited the market leaders but that they denied that such incident ever happened in the market.
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