Got this sad report from The Nation,just for refusing to date a
fellow youth corps member, Temitope
Adedewe’s whole life ambition seems
to have run into a cul-de-sac.
First, she was battered, so much so that
she lost two teeth and landed in a hospital; then her NYSC certificate
was with-held, the effect of which has caused her to miss an opportunity
to sit for a scholarship award examination by her Ife National
Descendants Association – something which would have opened the gates
for her to go further her studies in her choice university in the United
Kingdom.
Temitope also faces the bleak prospect of not being able to
apply for her master’s degree in Nigeria or even get a meaningful job
worth her qualification.
Adewewe’s nightmare began when in June of 2015; a male corps member
of the same batch (Batch A 2015/2016), Oluwabusiyi Adeola Bolarinde
started making advances at her. She had known Bolarinde from their
undergraduate days at the History Department of Obafemi Awolowo
University, but said she always stayed away from him “because he was the
aggressive type.”
“The first time I spoke to him was when we were in camp.” Adewewe
said. Both however got posted to the same local government and place of
primary assignment, giving Bolarinde the opportunity to start pressing
her for a relationship.
“When we got posted to the same school and had to stay in
the same lodge, the boy started asking me out. He said he had always
liked me even while we were in school but didn’t have the courage to
approach me because of my countenance. I told him there and then that I
was not interested but he persisted and I in turn insisted.”
Bolarinde’s persistence soon took a nasty turn, when in December that
year, he resorted to insulting Adewewe. With every attempt to woo her
failing, he suddenly decided to make her life miserable. “He became very
hostile and started insulting me at any given opportunity. Sometimes, I
returned the insults and at other times, I just ignored him. This
continued until January when things took a worse dimension.
It is one thing to rain insults on someone and a completely different
thing to get physically abusive. Adewewe was thus totally unprepared
for what soon followed.
“On the 23rd of January at the Corpers’ Lodge of Mary
Slessor Technical Secondary School where we both served, Bolarinde
suddenly went violent and beat me up. We had just returned from the
weekly Community development Service (CDS) three days earlier on the
20th; I wanted to recharge my phone line, but the network told me I had
to register my line because my sim had been blocked. Still a stranger in
the environment, I asked someone where I could do the registration; the
person told me he knew someone who knew the place, not knowing that the
person he had in mind was Bolarinde. Of course I refused to go with
him, but this person offered to go with us if that would make me feel
comfortable. So I agreed and we went.
“There, they said I had to pay N600 for the registration, but I told
the officer I didn’t have that amount of money on me. Just then,
Bolarinde said to the man, “Do it for her, I’ll pay, she’s my
girlfriend.”
I immediately refuted the statement, which made the man to start
making jest of him that his girlfriend was denying him. He insisted that
I was his girlfriend, to which I said ‘Who is your girlfriend? If it’s a
joke, stop it.’ I paid the man N200 and left.
“That was on Thursday. On Saturday, I was sitting in the lodge. By
this time, the Batch B corps members had joined us in the house. There
were like eight guys. Normally around 5:00 pm, the guys would go out and
fetch water. The house was in a very thick bush, so we used to lock our
doors early. On this particular evening, we’d already locked the door. I
was in the sitting room when I heard a knock on the door, I was scared,
I asked who was at the door and the person just responded, “Me.” I
insisted the person mentioned his name before I opened the door, which
he (Bolarinde) finally did.
“When I opened the door, he complained that he had been standing at
the door all day. He then told me that for all the gragra (resistance)
I’d been doing, I only had a day left for him to show me ‘pepper.’ I
ignored his threat and told him that if he had gone to fetch water like
his male colleagues, he wouldn’t be standing there telling me rubbish.
This was around 5pm. Around 7pm, he started sending me threat messages.
One of them read, “Let this be the first and last time I’ll knock and
you won’t open the door.”
“I asked who was sending me messages because I didn’t have his
number. He then asked me to check his profile picture. When I checked
and saw he was the one, I told him never to send me messages again. He
started insulting me and I returned the insults. Later I came out of the
room to charge my phone. By this time, people had already returned to
the lodge and they were discussing in the sitting area. He came in and
started cussing in Yoruba, and it was just the two of us that understood
what he was saying. The other guy that understood Yoruba was
downstairs. Part of what he said was, “Some people think they are fine;
that’s why everybody is asking them out and they’re forming.”
“But I was in no mood to stomach or banter insults, so I left the
sitting room and went into my room. The next thing I heard was a kick at
the door and Bolarinde came into the room and started beating me with
his belt. I screamed and people rushed into the room and pulled him away
from me. But before then, blood had already started oozing out of my
face and body because it was the iron end of the belt that he used on
me. Someone asked me to go and wash off the blood on my face, but as I
was going to the bathroom, he came by and told me he wasn’t done with me
yet.
“For want of something to say, I said ‘So you dare come to my room to
beat me with a belt?’But the next thing I saw was a blow to my mouth.
For the second time, he started beating me again. There was a hammer on
the floor in his room, in a twinkle, he picked it up with his leg and
banged it on my mouth. That’s how I lost my teeth. Everything happened
so fast. This was around 11pm. It was already too late for me to go to
the hospital. In fact, it was later I noticed the bite on my face. I
didn’t and still can’t recall the exact time he bit me.”
Bolarinde’s story
When The Nation called Bolarinde for his side of the
story, his initial response was somehow aloof. “The Nation newspaper?
Wow! So, you want to publicise my story, right? Well, when I see
official notice to that effect, I will respond sha.”
This reporter tried to underscore the importance of him giving his
side of the story to make for a balanced report. Bolarinde promised to
call back because according to him, he was “somehow busy” at the moment
and couldn’t speak.
After waiting for his call to no avail, this reporter placed another
call to him, taking more pain to explain why it was in his best interest
to give his account of the story, since the other side was going to be
published anyway.
Bolarinde however maintained his position, citing the NYSC code of
conduct, which he said does not allow corpers to give audience to the
press. He said “I am still a corper because my certificate is still
being withheld by the NYSC. I’m also aware that some media houses went
to the headquarters to confirm issues there… If I deem it fit to express
myself, I probably will.”
Almost inadvertently admitting that a fracas indeed took place,
Bolarinde said, “The thing is just that something happened, yes. The
person involved went to report to the authority. Now that… in short, I
have nothing to say for now…. You have tried ma, at least I don’t know
you and you don’t know me, and you have called on two occasions.”
Wasn’t Adewewe aware of the ‘code of conduct’?
Adewewe said she had gone to a nearby hospital the
following morning since the incident took place the previous night when
it was too late to visit any hospital.
On reaching the hospital, she recounted, “The nurse asked what
happened to me. I explained. She asked me three questions: Are you
dating him? Are you sleeping with him? Did you collect money from him? I
said no and she insisted I go and get a police report before they begin
any treatment, saying that this one has gone beyond normal fighting and
that the boy may be in a cult, to have beaten me to the point of using a
hammer to remove my teeth and giving me a very big bite on my face.
That was how I went to the police station at Arochukwu. Besides, this
incident happened in our place of primary assignment and not at the NYSC
camp in Umuahia.”
At the station, Adewewe said the sergeant who took her statement
refused to believe her story, insisting that she had to have been in a
serious fight to have sustained such kind of injury. To confirm her
story, he followed her to the lodge and picked up three corpers who
witnessed the incident. At the station, three of them gave the same
account, which made him arrest and put Bolarinde in a cell until they
were able to reach Mr Ikeagu Valentine, the Local Government Inspector
or LI.
The sergeant who handled the case, in a phone chat with The Nation
said they released the corper to the LI immediately, after he pleaded
and promised to resolve the matter amicably as a body and give the
police a feedback. He added that he has been transferred but that he
handed the file to another officer as is expected
“Since then, we have not heard anything from them.” He said. “We also
learnt that both of them were queried. I really don’t know much about
the case again, because we were expecting them to get back to us.“We had wanted to charge the boy to court, but the plea of the Local
Government Inspector and the decision of the state secretariat to look
into the matter made us hands off.
Adewewe corroborated the sergeant’s story: “When the LI came around,
the DPO told him that he was going to charge the boy to court. The LI
then told him that it’s an NYSC matter and that it would be better
settled by the NYSC. However DPO told him then that it wasn’t just an
NYSC matter anymore, since it happened in Arochukwu and the victim (I)
could have died in the process with NYSC being far away in Umuahia. He
said since the incident happened in his jurisdiction, it behoved him to
do something about it. At this point, the L I begged him not to take the
case to court, and that they should allow him present it first to the
NYSC, and let them find a way of resolving it amicably. The DPO then
said the boy should bear the medical bills before being released to the
LI that Monday.”
Thereafter, Adewewe said she wrote her statement and was given a
police report to go to the hospital for treatment. She however recalled
that on her way to the hospital, “LI called me and said he was giving us
query, which we should both respond to, and that if he sent it to the
Zonal Inspector (ZI), they would seize the boy’s certificate and not
allow him to pass out with us. He said I should allow him comment that
we have settled the matter to a good extent and that he had agreed to
pay. He implored me not to allow the matter get to the NYSC, that it
should just end with the police alone.
I then said to him, “Sir, you have not even allowed me to get to the
hospital to know how much the treatment will cost and you’re already
trying to close the case?”
I couldn’t understand it. But he eventually sent the file to the NYSC
state secretariat and commented that everything had been settled.”
At the hospital, she said an initial cost of N9,500 was incurred
while the doctor told her she would have to return after her wound had
healed. He said this was so because she would need to have an implant to
replace the lost teeth. Adewewe said the total amount she spent was
N18,000, covering the hospital bill and transport fare for herself and
another corper the LI assigned to follow her, so she would not inflate
the medical bills. She said this money was refunded to her.
Something to hide?
Fast forward to her next appointment with the doctor, she was told
that the implant would cost N300,000 for the two teeth she lost. She
reported to the officer handling the case, who requested for the
presence of both their parents. At this point, the LI again pleaded that
calling for their parents would be taking the matter too far. “LI told
the officer to close the case. But the officer said he couldn’t do that
unless he was providing a solution, so that if the case resurfaces in
the future, they can be able to say this is what they did in their
division, not that they would just close it and it would be like they’d
collected bribe.
“Later the officer asked me what the NYSC had done about the case and
I told him I had yet to hear from them; and that in fact, the L I had
practically closed the case from the very first day. The officer now
asked me to take it to the ZI myself, that for the LI to want to bury
the case; he must have something to hide. I did as he told me. On
reporting to the ZI, he told me that the L I never mentioned that a
weapon was involved. He just told him that two people fought, one of
them had her teeth removed and that they had resolved the matter.”
Justice subverted
But for the police officer’s advice to call the Zonal Inspector’s
attention to the matter and her heeding it, the case was as good as
closed. Adewewe said when the ZI found out that it was a hammer that was
used to remove her teeth; he felt a need to reopen the case. “We were
invited to Umuahia to state our sides of the story and it was as if the
boy had been trained to twist the whole thing. He lied to the point of
saying I was the one who brought a hammer to his room, that my teeth was
already paining me, and that he even had someone who could witness to
his claims. After he spoke, I was asked to speak, and I did. The LI,
whom they said brought a witness, was also seated. I was so surprised.
“According to those who constituted the panel, Bolarinde’s witness
told them that we had been dating and that it was when we got here that
we started fighting. Wondering why I hadn’t been told to bring my own
witness, I asked if I could also bring one witness, since I had three
witnesses, who had testified from the beginning
To my surprise, Mrs Akuma, one of the NYSC personnel in the state
started raising her voice and threatening, “What is it? Do you want them
to kill him? Where do you expect him to see N300,000? If it was your
husband that did this will you be requesting for money?”
“She also accused me of taking the matter to the ZI even when the LI
was trying to settle it quietly. She said what has happened has
happened, and if I do not allow the matter to die down now, she would
show me that she’s a woman like me and that I would have her to contend
with.
“Around March, we were again invited to Umuahia, where Mrs Akuma set
up a panel and asked us to state our stories again. She then passed
judgement that I committed a breech in communication by reporting to the
police. Again, I told her I had to because the nurse at the hospital
insisted I brought a police report before I could be treated. She said,
for that, both of us would face the same punishment. Rudely shocked, I
said, “Ma, I’m the one who lost her teeth in this matter, why would you
serve me the same punishment as the one who removed my teeth?
“Mrs Akuma then shared the hospital bill equally between the two of
us. She also said we’d both serve extra 21 days, me for breech in
communication and the boy for fighting.
Reacting to the judgment, the sergeant (who handled the case) now
turned inspector said, “I don’t know why the state NYSC responded in
that manner. Is it a crime for someone who committed an offense to be
reported to the police? Do NYSC laws now supersede the laws of the
federation?
“Fast forward to April 14th when certificates were issued, I was not
given mine. When I asked why, the LI told me to go to the secretariat.
At the secretariat Bolarinde and I were asked to see the state
coordinator, Mrs Francesca Ifon, who said she didn’t know about the case
earlier, and that if we decided to settle there and then, she would
release our certificates to us. She asked us to go and write an
undertaking that we would resolve the matter without going to court, and
return for our certificates. But by the time we returned to her office,
she had left.
“We saw Mrs Akuma who said she had already transferred the case to
Abuja; that the judgment she gave the first time was a mistake. She said
she had to wait for a feedback from Abuja. It was as if she was trying
to make good her threat to “show me that she is a woman and that I would
have her to contend with.”
Adewewe lamented that Mrs Akuma dismissed her despite telling her she
needed the certificate to sit for an examination that would qualify her
for a scholarship to study for her masters abroad. “She said she would
get back to us whenever Abuja was ready to release the certificates.
“After a while, I called her and she told me not to disturb her again
until she gets a feedback from Abuja. I didn’t call her again, only for
me to go to Ibadan last June and meet a colleague who told me that
Bolarinde has been given his certificate. A batch B corps member also
called to ask me if I’m aware that Bolarinde has started doing his
masters at the University of Ibadan. I didn’t believe him initially
until I called my own classmate that’s also in Ibadan; he confirmed that
it’s true and that he even helped Bolarinde with an assignment
recently.
“I also called the LI that same June to ask how far with the release
of the certificate and guess what he told me. He said “I thought they’ve
given you people a photocopy of your certificates.”
“Now how can you seize our certificates and still give out the
photocopy? Probably realising he had goofed; he then said he was
mistaken. That’s how I put two and two together to know that something
was indeed amiss.”
The Nation
The National Youth Service Corps headquarters Abuja is yet to officially respond few days after femalecorps member Temitope Adedewe, was battered and her two teeth removed with a hammer by a male corps member.
Also her NYSC discharge certificate, which was withheld for
purportedly breaching the NYSC code of conduct and reporting the matter
to the police in Arochukwu, Abia State, where the incident happened, is
yet to be issued to her. This is despite a strong allegation that her
assailant, Oluwabusiyi Adeola Bolarinde is already studying for his
master’s degree at the University of Ibadan, which could not have been
possible if he didn’t produce his NYSC discharge certificate.
The corps’ Director of Public Relations, Mrs. Abosede Aderibigbe was
not available for comments on the issue. Efforts to reach her on phone
were also abortive, as her phones were switched off and she did not
respond to text messages.
A source at the Welfare Department in Abuja, who spoke to The
Nation on condition of anonymity, however, admitted that they are aware
of the case and have started looking into it.
He said steps are being taken to resolve the issue, and that a
concrete decision is expected to be reached on the matter next week.