The police in Ogun State have arrested a hairdresser, Kudirat Oyediran, for allegedly inflicting injuries on her stepdaughter, Rachael Oyediran. It was learnt that 32-year-old Kudirat allegedly tortured the five-year-old for bed-wetting and disobedience. Kudirat and Rachael live in Okeore, Atan Ota, in the Ado-Odo Ota Local Government Area of the state. The mother of one was apprehended after a neighbour reported the alleged torture to the police at the Onipanu division.
PUNCH Metro gathered that Rachael’s mother died five years ago when she was three months old. She was said to have been under the care of the suspect, whom her father married a few years after. The Abeokuta, Ogun State indigene, reportedly told the police that she beat Rachael for being “obstinate”, adding that she only used brooms to beat her.
She said, “She is my stepdaughter and I have been taking good care of her. But she is very stubborn. If I give an instruction, she won’t follow it. She is bed-wetting and I have cautioned her several times. She is also fond of stealing pieces of meat from the pot of stew. I only beat her with brooms; I don’t use any object on her. I promise not to beat her again.” A police source told our correspondent that the victim had been handed over to her father, Dele, who was made to sign an undertaking that the girl would be properly taken care of thenceforth.
The source said, “On May 30, a Good Samaritan reported at the station that one Kudirat Oyediran of Okeore was in the habit of constantly assaulting her stepdaughter, Rachael. As a result, she sustained serious bruises on her back. The mother of the victim died three months after her birth. Her father married the suspect so she could take care of her. The woman has a six-month-old baby.
“The girl would have been transferred to a motherless home, but her father and some community elders pleaded that she should not be taken there. The father wrote an undertaking to ensure her proper upkeep before she was released to him.”
The Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Muyiwa Adejobi, in a text message, confirmed the woman’s arrest, adding that the case would be charged to court.
He said, “The command has no tolerance for inhuman cases of such and will always fish out the culprits.”