Stepmother Testifies In Lady Banker Murder

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Mrs Adetoun Oyakhire, stepmother to Titilayo Omosoje Arowolo, the lady banker allegedly murdered by her unemployed husband, Akolade Arowolo, Tuesday told a Lagos high court, Ikeja that the relation between the duo was already strained before her murder.

 

A depressed Mrs. Oyakhire, who was the fifth prosecution witness, in an emotion laden voice, gave a vivid account of the harrowing relationship that existed between the deceased and her husband within their two years of marriage.

 

She told the court presided over by Justice Lateefa Okunnu that the last time the deceased came running home in January 2011, she told her father she was tired of the marriage and wanted to file for divorce.

 

According to her, the deceased told the family that her house help caught her husband in bed with another lady and that she reported Akolade to his mother before coming to her father’s house.

 

The witness who was led in evidence by the Director of Public Prosecution(DPP) Mrs. Olabisi Ogungbesan told the court that her father, before going back to Kano, told her she must not go back to her husband’s house.

 

The stepmother said that Titilayo however went back to her husband when he came in April to beg and asked for forgiveness, adding “I think he succeeded in convincing her that he is a changed person”.

 

In another account, she said that three months after their marriage, they had a quarrel.

“I can’t remember how it started but I remembered that Kolade chased her round the house with a knife. She was still breast feeding her baby then. He succeeded in snatching the baby from her and took her to his mother at Ejigbo”.

 

She said that Akolade’s mother later brought the baby back to Titilayo in her father’s house.

 

In yet another account, the stepmother told the court that there was a time Akolade threatened to throw the deceased from a top floor and that her father advised her to report the threat at the police station for documentation “but I am not sure she did”.

 

Earlier, the fourth prosecution witness, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Titus Ogbonna had told the court that based on the investigation he conducted, he was certain that Akolade Arowolo murdered his wife, Titilayo Omosoje Arowolo.

 

He stressed that he based his conclusion on the findings in the investigation he conducted into the matter.

 

ASP Ogbona who was under cross examination by the counsel to the defence, Mr. Olanrewaju Ajanaku, also told the court that there was enough circumstantial evidence linking Arowolo to the death of his wife, Titilayo.

 

“Everything I reported are based on what the people told me and as a result of what I saw at the scene of the crime,” he said.

 

By Henry Ojelu

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