1.
PREAMBLE
This
is AN UPDATE to the initial press statement issued by the family of Mrs Busayo
Olafare nee Taiwo, on the
unfortunate suicide of her husband Oluwaseun Paul Olafare, on Sunday, 12th
of April, 2015.
2.
WHY
ARE WE UPDATING OUR PRESS STATEMENT?
We had, until the initial press statement
of Tuesday 28th April, 2015, maintained a dignified silence, despite
huge temptations to break it by the thoughtless action of her husband’s family
who threw caution to the winds by going on unbridled rampage on social media.
They ran a one-sided campaign of hate and calumny filled with innuendos,
half-truths, brainless lies, prejudicial comments, and unfounded and baseless
accusations sprinkled with a generous dose of libel.
AS
WE WRITE, THEY HAVE SIDETRACKED DUE PROCESS AND IN CONNIVANCE WITH THE HOSPITAL
AUTHORITIES, COLLECTED THE DECEASED BODY AND BURIED IT ON SATURDAY, 2ND
MAY, 2015 WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF THE WIFE AND THE CHILDREN AND HER FAMILY.
THIS IS ALSO DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE
POLICE ARE STILL CONDUCTING INVESTIGATIONS, AND DESPITE THE FACT THAT BUSAYO IS
IN HER FOURTH WEEK OF DETENTION FOR A CLEAR CASE OF SUICIDE.
WHATEVER THE POLICE INVESTIGATION WILL
REVEAL, WE ARE SAYING IT IS A CLEAR CASE OF SUICIDE BECAUSE IT IS ABSOLUTELY
IMPOSSIBLE TO FORCE DOWN THE THROAT OF EVEN A DAY-OLD-BABY THE AMOUNT OF
POISONOUS SUBSTANCE THAT HE TOOK TO END HIS LIFE!
Amongst other reasons, we had kept quiet:
I.
....out of respect for the memory of the
deceased who was more of a beloved son than a son-in-law.
II.
.... out of shock, we must confess, at the way
those who are claiming that they loved Seun were treating his memory.
III.
.... out of consideration for the feelings of
our daughter whose grief was compounded by the inconsiderate action of her
husband’s family who, without conscience and out of malice, and despite knowing
the facts, accused Busayo of murdering her husband, on account of which she was
taken into custody by the Police.
IV.
.... out of the belief that the irrational noise
they were making was not the best, and that common sense will eventually
prevail, considering that the marriage produced two children (out of three
confinements) who are still infants, and who deserve a better memory of a
father they will grow up without knowing.
V.
....also because of the belief that we should
not issue any statements or engage in a press war with Seun’s family, in order
not to prejudice Police investigations into the matter in any way.
We are constrained to update our statement and open
up more because this family has misled the public down the wrong road for too
long and are trying so hard to “give a dog a bad name to hang it”! They are
desperate, for reasons best known to them, to act the woman in the bible who
lost her child, and wanted King Solomon to divide her partner’s child into two
out of pure hate, jealousy and malice. (1 Kings 3: verses 16 - 28).
3.
WHO
WAS OLUWASEUN PAUL OLAFARE?
The social media and regular newspapers
have published enough snippets of his life, especial the ‘award-winning
pharmacist’ and youth mentor bit. The public has also heard that he had
financial issues. He took a loan from a bank and a cooperative without
consulting the wife, but was forced to tell her when the centre could not hold,
and when she had to even be fuelling and maintaining the car, in addition to
picking up all the bills.
Let’s go back a little and we’ll see that
Seun was an insecure child; according to his older brother Femi Olafare, he had
once wanted to commit suicide because he broke five crates of minerals with the
liquid contents, for fear of punishment from his mother.
Fast forward to his Facebook Note of
November, 15, 2011, where he wrote what he titled, “This is my story”:
“When all the light becomes darkness,
when your strength becomes weakness,
When all you preach against catch up with you,
when failure stands face to face, shoulder to shoulder with you.
When
you are surrounded by people that doesn’t (sic) understand you
<loneliness?>.
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT OF COMMITTING
SUICIDE? OH! I HAVE BEEN THERE”
He
went further to tell us, how he “grew up in the slum”,
how
he “MOVED WITH THE DEAD”,
how
his “mum and dad splitted (sic)”, and,
how
he thought he “WOULD NEVER HAVE A FUTURE”.
ON APRIL 3RD 2015, SEUN SENT A TEXT MESSAGE TO BUSAYO ASKING
HER TO REMARRY IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO HIM; of course, this was ‘rejected in
Jesus’ name’ by Busayo. She discussed the matter with him and they ended up
praying about it. She suggested going for counselling but this he vehemently
rejected.
His last post on Facebook was on 4th April, 2015 wherein he
wrote,
“LIFE IS NOT
FAIR...
I returned and saw under the sun,
that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to
the strong
neither yet bread to the wise nor yet favour to men
of skill.....”
That Seun had psychological issues is not in doubt. He was a relatively
quiet person who didn’t speak out his mind and was haunted by the fact that he
came from a broken home. He could only sleep with lights on because, according
to him, evil spirits are in the darkness around him. Days before his death,
during a night vigil, a bird flew into the church, and he said to the hearing
of many people that ‘it was him they came for’. At another vigil, someone had a
vision that he saw a human form walking with its legs above the ground, Seun
promptly said, again to the hearing of many people, that ‘they came for him’.
He was given a message to remain under ‘protection’ in their church for some
days but failed to complete it. He had once expressed to his wife that he felt
like jumping into the lagoon from the Third Mainland Bridge, this is what his
siblings twisted into Busayo physically restraining him from jumping from the
bridge.
There is no doubt that his financial problems significantly contributed
to his depressed state of mind, which led to his unfortunate end. There is
evidence that Seun’s father put him under financial pressure, through a text
message, for Seun to “assist” him in the burial of his brother in the days
leading to his suicide.
His father told people that he had a horrible dream about Seun days
before, and sent a text message telling him not to give himself to the ‘enemy’.
He told Seun to see him on that same Sunday when he killed himself. Apparently,
they know the ‘enemy’, and a few things about this unfortunate event that they
have not told the world.
Again, but for the incomprehensibly thoughtless attitude of his family,
all these should not be in the public domain.
4.
‘WHO
IS MRS. BUSAYO OLAFARE (NEE TAIWO)?
Busayo is the first child of the family,
she is thirty-one years old, has three siblings - an immediate younger brother
and a pair of twins one male and the other female. She is a double graduate of
Accountancy of the Yaba College of Technology and the University of Lagos. She
holds a Higher National Diploma and Bachelors Degree respectively of the two
top higher institutions in Lagos. She works in one of the top financial
institutions in Lagos. Raised in a solid Christian home, her passion for God is
not in question, and as said earlier, she has two children, who are infants, a
male and female, for her late husband.
5.
WHAT
HAPPENED AND WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?
Early in the morning on Sunday 12th of April, 2015,
we were jolted by a phone call from Busayo telling us that
Seun had attempted committing suicide and had been rushed to the hospital. This
naturally shocked us to our bone marrows. On our way to the hospital, we got
another call that he had died in the hospital. We made our way to their
residence where we met her in a state of understandable shock; she was a total
emotional wreck. Their neighbours were trying so hard to calm her down as she
was totally distraught, while awaiting the arrival of families on both sides.
We asked
Busayo what happened and she told us that they were preparing for church and as
she was about to iron their sutana, Seun
offered to do it. Busayo at a stage found out that his sutana was not amongst the ones to be ironed. She asked him why and
he answered that he would not be going to church because he is expected to
contribute some money in the church which he cannot afford. According to the
wife, he was visibly unhappy to the extent that she gave him some money and
told him to pick more money from the wardrobe if he needed more to sort things
out in the church. He told her that she should go ahead to the church and that
he would join her later.
She went to the bathroom to take her bath
and on her return found him with the plastic bottle containing the poisonous
substance that he drank, and before she could stop him, he drank more of the
substance. She rushed to the kitchen to bring palm oil to use as an antidote
and raised an alarm calling on the neighbours for help; however, he told her
that “it was too late”!
With the help of neighbours, he was rushed
to the hospital where he eventually gave up the ghost.
We must remark that her offer to give him
money to sort out the financial issue in the church was not the first time that
she would assist him financially; aside from cash, there are verifiable records of fund transfers
from her to him to support this. These transfers were usually to sort out one
financial problem or the other as his finances were never in a good shape. At
this stage, it is right to disclose that it was Busayo that provided the money
for the renewal of their tenancy and was also the one taking care of the school
fees (kindergarten/crèche) of the kids, fills the gas, buys clothes for the
children, and also takes care of feeding. These are facts that ordinarily are
not supposed to come into the public domain but for the way his family had
taken matters.
6.
WAS SEUN’S FAMILY IMMEDIATELY INFORMED OF HIS
SUICIDE?
On getting to the late Seun and Busayo’s
residence, we asked if his family had been informed, and the neighbours
confirmed that Seun’s family had been informed of his death. Specifically, we
were told that his father had been informed but that he said he did not believe
them, and that they couldn’t be talking about his son. Right there in our
presence, his father was called again severally without any positive response
from him. Whilst we appreciate that shock could have made him act strangely -
he was obviously in a state of denial - it is certainly not true that he was not
informed of Seun’s death! HE WAS INFORMED IMMEDIATELY IT HAPPENED!
7.
WAS
SEUN’S CORPSE REALLY TAKEN TO THE MORGUE WITHOUT HIS FAMILY’S “CONSENT”?
The neighbours who helped to rush him to the
hospital were the ones who took his body from the hospital where he died to the
mortuary at Gbagada General Hospital, which was the sensible thing to do. It is
a fact that he did not die in the house; that was why he was rushed to the
hospital in the first place. It is patently silly and completely unreasonable
to expect his neighbours to bring his corpse back to the house! The neighbours
were with the corpse IN THE MORTUARY PREMISES all this while; the body was IN
THE VEHICLE that took it there and HAD NOT YET been deposited in the morgue.
Back in the house, Busayo and members of our family
waited for Seun’s family who did not show up, to the extent that the neighbours
who were with his body started fretting and calling for members of the family
to come to the mortuary to take possession of his body. Their landlord came
back from the mortuary, and being an old man needed to rest and take his drugs,
he did all this in the house, and still HELD ON TO THE DEATH CERTIFICATE
without which the body cannot be accepted in the mortuary. We waited and waited
but no one from his family showed up. As time wore on, ambient temperature was
rising and everyone started worrying that the body by now ought to have been
deposited in the morgue, still not one of his family members had shown up.
Finally, we all moved to the Gbagada General Hospital mortuary where we were
told that there was no longer space for the body. Their neighbours naturally
were no longer prepared to go further and insisted that the body be transferred
to another vehicle. One of Seun’s friends offered his car and we all made our
way to the Mainland Hospital Yaba. Even here we waited for members of his
family to show up. The body was not brought down from the car though we were
not comfortable with the rising temperature. Finally, we heard that members of
his family were on the way, and when they arrived, they saw the body which was
still in the car that took him to the mortuary. After the protocols for
admitting the body was completed, ONE OF SEUN’S SIBLINGS, BABALOLA, SIGNED THE
PAPERS TO ADMIT HIS CORPSE TO THE MORGUE. SEUN’S FATHER AND A HOST OF HIS
FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS WERE PRESENT IN OR AROUND THE MORGUE! Yet, in
glaring contradiction to the facts, they went on to tell the world the
brainless and barefaced lie that Busayo’s family deposited Seun’s body in the
morgue without their consent!
8.
DID
BUSAYO TRY TO RUN AWAY?
Nothing could be more ridiculous than suggesting
that she tried to run away! Seun’s family is trying to turn a sobering tragedy
into a farce or outright mockery; unfortunately, they are not good
scriptwriters. It is a baseless accusation borne out of the need to be
sensational and theatrical with the tragedy.
After leaving the mortuary, knowing that suicide is
reportable, we went to Oworonsoki Police Station to incident it. It is silly to
accuse a woman who was accompanied by her uncle, siblings and other members of
her family to VOLUNTARILY report the incident at the appropriate Police
Station, of trying to run away. We made it clear to the Police that we were
taking her to our family house.
It was AFTER
reporting at the Police Station that we went back to the house to pick few of
her clothes and some of the things needed by her infant children and not to
pack her property as was being insinuated. This is because she and her children
had nothing else except what they were wearing. Being bereaved in such a sudden
and tragic manner, and knowing the kind of family they are, it was
inconceivable to leave her alone in their rented apartment, with two infants,
(one barely a year old and the other just over two years old). Considering the
emotional trauma she was going through, it was more convenient to take her away
to her family house. This was especially expedient, considering that Seun’s
family members were openly threatening to deal with Busayo at the mortuary, as
is common with some families who make scapegoats of the wife/husband in
cases like this.
Objective members of the public should ask
themselves whether it would make sense to leave her in her state of mind with a
family that beat Busayo up even while she had just delivered her first child,
and was still bleeding, and also beat her up on the day of the naming ceremony
of her second baby. Before then, she had once received a threatening text
message from her father-in-law. Should we have left her in that state of mind
to a family that has physically assaulted her before? We were proved right when
Femi beat her up again at the Oworonsoki Police Station in full view of
policemen.
As we speak, they have demonstrated their wickedness
to the world by reporting a case of suspected murder, although SEUN’S ELDER
BROTHER, FEMI, HAVE SAID IT AT LEAST THREE TIMES THAT WE KNOW OF, TO OUR
HEARING AND TO THE HEARING OF CREDIBLE WITNESSES, THAT HE KNEW HIS BROTHER
COMMITTED SUICIDE BUT THAT BUSAYO MUST PAY FOR IT.
As we write, Busayo is still in Police custody
instead of mourning her husband, her two infant children who have lost their
father are now being denied of motherly comfort and love, but this family went
about telling the world that she has been released. Also, to justify re-opening
of their beer-selling business at Akute, which they inherited from their late
mother, they told people that Seun had been buried when his body was still in
the morgue. Also, to justify burying Seun in the absence of his wife and
children, they told people that Busayo had been released and was too ill to
attend the burial whereas as we write, she is in her fourth week of detention
for something she knows nothing about.
Where would Busayo have run to? She has a career job
and two infant children. Her maternal and paternal family houses are both
located in Somolu, and it was one of these addresses that was given to the
Police at Oworonsoki. Suggesting that she would run away is suggesting that her
whole family, and her uncle and his family who live in that house would run
away. It is so ridiculous!
Incidentally,
the first child of the family, Iyabode, had before now, lost her husband too.
This same family accusing Busayo of trying to run away packed all her
belongings and took Iyabode away that same day.
9.
BUSAYO
WAS BEATEN UP BY FEMI OLAFARE WHILST IN THE CUSTODY OF THE POLICE AT
OWORONSOKI!
Femi Olafare, the elder brother of the deceased, who
is a Federal Road Safety Corps officer took pictures of Busayo while in the
custody of the Police and also beat her up while in custody. He was not
arrested for this grievous offence committed in broad daylight apparently
because he is a Road Safety Corp officer. Busayo was not allowed to incident
this at the Oworonsoki Police Station despite her insistence and that of the
family. The authorities concerned are being asked to tell us whether
complainants are allowed to be accuser, investigator, prosecutor, judge and
executioner. Otherwise, why was Femi Olafare not taken into custody for beating
up a young widow with two infant children, and who is still in emotional trauma
from her loss, and whose woes are being compounded by being unjustly accused of
suspected murder in a clear case of suicide? On this score, we are asking for
justice for Busayo.
10. ON THE ALLEGATION OF BUSAYO SHIELDING THE
OLAFARE FAMILY FROM SEEING THE CHILDREN
Busayo works Monday to Saturday and has to leave
home very early. She gets home as late as eleven pm and sometimes later; Seun,
on the other hand, had more flexible hours. He worked shifts and was the one
who took the children to and from school. Every other week, he was free from
8am to 4 pm. In other words, they had all the time in the world to visit him
and the children or vice versa, but it was HIS decision, for reasons known to
himself, to deliberately keep his children away from them.
11. CONCLUSION
1.
The family stands by Busayo’s story and has no
reasons whatsoever to doubt her.
2.
Busayo did not attempt to escape and will not
under any circumstances do so as there is no reason to do so.
3.
Busayo is unjustly being hounded out of hate,
vindictiveness and pure malice, and because of the widespread practice of
making widows scapegoats when things like this happen.
4.
We are waiting for the Police to conclude their
investigations as quickly as possible as this is her fourth week of detention
in Panti State Criminal Investigation Department.
5.
We will take any and all steps necessary to
protect her rights and interests, and those of her infant children whose welfare
does not appear to be of any concern to Seun’s family.
6.
Once again, we appreciate everyone who has stood
by us and Busayo all this while and we know that by the Grace of God, this
storm will blow over. This is a dark period in our daughter’s life; we know it
will be morning yet and she will get back on her feet again!
7.
We pray for the repose of Oluwaseun Paul
Olafare’s soul and plead with almighty God to forgive him his sins and grant
him eternal grace. It is well with his soul, it is well with us all!
The
Taiwo Family
0803 859 7944
kehindenubi@yahoo.com
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