Kunle Falayi
It was like madness had come over
50-year-old Dayo Kamorudeen, a taxi driver in the Lekki area of Lagos,
when he heard the most shocking secret his wife of more than 20 years
had been keeping from him.
According to Kamorudeen, it appeared
that a spell had been placed upon his wife when she told him on Sunday,
January 17 that she was visiting Akute, a border town between Ogun and
Lagos states.
Kamorudeen said he lived with his wife
and three children in Akute for many years until two years ago when he
relocated to his new house in Oke-Ogun area of Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
But what happened on January 17 opened a Pandora’s box of a big secret that his wife had been forced to keep for two years.
“My wife told me he was going to Akute
that day and she was really adamant as usual. Anytime she said she
wanted to go to Akute, there was nothing anybody could say to stop her.
“But this last Sunday, I had to ask her
what exactly she was going to do at Akute since we had left the place
two years ago. Even if she had a relation there that I did not know
about, shouldn’t the person too visit her once in a while?
“She then started crying, mentioning the
name of Alfa Shehu Lukman, the Islamic cleric that was teaching my
children Qur’anic studies before we left Akute. I remembered that before
we left the community, my last daughter suddenly said she was never
going to attend the Alfa’s Qur’anic class anymore.
“I asked my wife what the Alfa did and
by the time she was done, I was too shocked to even know what to say. I
was looking at my wife and she suddenly seemed like a stranger to me,
like she was not the same woman I married in 1996. I just could not
believe what she was telling me.
“She was crying and said if I did not allow her to visit Alfa, he would kill me and our children and she too would run mad.”
What Kamorudeen narrated that his wife
confessed to was too shocking to be believed at first, so our
correspondent asked his wife to explain what happened herself.
Kemi told our correspondent that while
they were still living at Akute, she had a dream one day. Since her
husband was away at work at the time, she said she had to turn to Alfa
Shehu Lukman for help.
She said, “The dream was frightening. I
narrated the dream to him and he told me that a spirit husband was
behind my problem. He said the problem required an urgent solution so
that the spirit husband would not be able to kill me.
“He told me that after I had taken my
bath the following day, I should call him and he would come with the
medicine. The following morning, I took my bath and called him.
“When he came, he brought out a razor
and some medicine he had prepared and said he would need to make an
incision on my private part. I asked why he couldn’t just explain how it
would be done so that my husband could do it for me when he came back
from work but he said that it was a taboo for husbands to handle such
medicine.
“He told me that to ward off the spirit
husband, the incision was just the preliminary treatment. He said the
medicine would be rubbed on the incision after it had been made.
“I agreed to it and he was making the
incision when he suddenly grabbed my neck and forced himself on me. He
raped me on the three-seater couch in our sitting room.”
Kemi explained that after Lukman had his
way with her, he brought out some drugs and a Qur’an and told her that
if she dared to disclose what he did to anybody, her husband and
children would die while she would run mad.
She said as she was visibly shaking in fright, he made her swear to secrecy with the Qur’an.
The 45-year-old artisan told Saturday PUNCH,
“He told me not to worry and that the spirit husband would leave me
alone so far as I heeded his instructions. I asked why he would do such a
terrible thing to me when he knew my children and husband.
“He said what was done was done. He said
he used a medicine on me while raping me and that he would leave me to
my problem if I decided to make a scene. He said I would simply run mad.
“He said another condition that would
make me to retain my sanity was that anytime he needed sex and he called
me, I must always heed his call wherever I was and that I must not tell
anyone.”
“I have been his sex slave for the past
two years because of this. He calls me anytime he wants sex. Sometimes
he sleeps with me in our house when my husband is away, sometimes he
demands that I should come to his house in Akute.”
Asked if Lukman’s wife and children were
not usually around when he slept with her, she said he has a dedicated
room where he slept with her.
Asked how she did not summon the courage
to tell her husband in the last two years, she said she was just too
afraid that Lukman might make good his threat.
Kemi said she was also afraid that
Lukman could reverse a spiritual help he rendered to her youngest child,
who is now 22 years old.
“There was a time my daughter woke up
and was complaining of some problems. I took her to the Alfa and he said
she needed a spiritual bath. That was before he first forced himself on
me. He took her for the spiritual bath and she became well,” she said.
Asked if she followed the spiritualist
and her daughter to the spot where the spiritual bath took place, she
said Lukman forbade her from following.
Kemi’s husband said he simply could not believe that his wife was going through such a thing without telling anyone.
“I told her that she must not go that
day and that if he was indeed as powerful as he claimed to be, he should
kill me before the next day,” Kamorudeen said.
Kamorudeen said one of their children, a
university undergraduate, was travelling to school and had accident
that affected her legs few years ago.
He said, “My last born, who introduced
the Alfa (Lukman) to us, was undergoing Qur’anic studies under him at
the time. While we were in Ife for her elder sister’s treatment, she was
alone at home.
“She said she was sleeping in the
sitting room one afternoon when the Alfa came visiting to sympathise
with us on the accident. She said when she told him that we were not
around, he suddenly grabbed her neck and attempted to rape her but she
quickly raised the alarm.
“Our landlady at the time came out when
she heard the noise but the Alfa quickly told the woman that he was just
trying to continue the Qur’anic studies and she was proving stubborn.
He used that opportunity to escape that day. My daughter too could not
tell the woman what actually happened.”
Kamorudeen said he could recall that since they left Akute two years ago, his wife had visited the place more than 30 times.
On Thursday, our correspondent tracked
down Lukman in a remote community of Otun Abule, few kilometres from
Akute area of Ogun State where he carries out his spiritual
consultations.
Lukman, who started to sweat when our
correspondent mentioned Kemi’s name, said he is 52 years old and an
indigene of Abeokuta, Ogun State.
When all the allegations against him had
been related to him, he said he was really shocked about everything the
woman had said against him.
He said, “There is no quarrel between
us, so I don’t know where all these rape allegations are coming from. I
am really shocked but truly, they consult with me regularly on spiritual
issues.
“I am a spiritual doctor to the woman
and her children. It is true that I made incisions on her, but it was
not on her private part. It was just beside her private part, on the
inner part of her thighs.
“I have been a spiritualist for more
than 30 years and I do not lie. It is true that I also did a treatment
for her daughter which required a spiritual bath. There is nothing
strange in that. There is a stream not far from here where she had the
bath.
“I knew the girl first when she was my
pupil. She then introduced me to her parents. Her mother consults me all
the time and so do the children. But I never slept with or raped the
woman before. I also never attempted to rape her daughter.”
Asked if he ever called Kemi in recent
times, he said he only called her about two weeks ago to find out if she
was visiting the area.
“She had told me before that she was
attending an event around here. So, I called two weeks ago to know about
the event,” he said.
And why did he have to do that, he was asked, Lukman said he was just checking on her welfare.
“Before that last call, I had not even spoken with her for about four months.”
Kamorudeen, who reached out to activist,
Esther Ogwu, of the Esther Child Rights Foundation, for help, said he
wants justice but does not know the appropriate step to take.
The case has yet to be reported to the police, but Ogwu said the authorities would be notified when necessary.
She said, “People should be careful the
kind of people they turn to for help. At this point, I can only advise
people who may be in a similar situation to always confide in a third
party.
“I believe Kemi. He probably simply
preyed on her fears. It is also possible that this Alfa might be doing
the same thing to other people in that community. They should seek help
because whatever he is feeding them is just lies to keep them enslaved.”
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