By Job Osazuwa
Mrs. Idiaghagbon Iyere has said that her life is no longer safe while she continues to live under the same roof with her husband, Mr. Kelvin Iyere. She claimed that the man has turned her to a punching bag: at the slightest provocation, he would unleash his fury on her, leaving her gasping for breath.
She singled out a day in January when her husband threatened to kill her with a gun, put her corpse in his car’s boot and secretly bury her. She also recalled a day when her husband, whom she said was angry with her, fired a shot in the air as a warning to her that the gun was real and loaded.
In fact, she described her husband as a beast. According to her, Iyere tore her clothes and dislocated her arm as he dragged her along the floor in their house on June 2. She alleged that her husband had sold his conscience to the devil, saying he had beaten her up more than 30 times since they got married.
But the accused, Iyere, countered all the allegations, saying he does not have any issue with anybody.
When the reporter called him on the telephone for his reaction, he responded: “Just like the last time I told you, all these things are for political reasons; maybe that is what they are still doing.”
Just as the caller asked why his wife was no longer living with him, the telephone line went dead.
Daily Sun had on March 30 reported how Iyere, former Senior Special Assistant to Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, was accused by his wife’s mother, Madam Omoye Usadoh, 63, of threating her life. She had claimed that her son-in-law beat her up and threatened she and her children with a gun on February 26 when she tried to prevent him from forcefully taking away his wife, Idiaghagbon, from her home.
But the accused then denied the claims, saying the claims were the handiwork of his enemies. Iyere had on the telephone on March 11, responding to the allegations, denied ever beating his wife. In fact, he said the allegations were strange to him.
He said: “That is not true. I didn’t beat my wife up and I have never assaulted her. I didn’t beat my mother-in-law too or threaten my wife’s family members with a gun. At the moment, my wife is with me at home and we are living peacefully,” he said.
To authenticate his position, after some minutes, he placed a telephone call to the reporter, telling him that his wife was about to narrate her own side of the story. His wife concurred with her husband, saying there was peace in her matrimonial home and she didn’t receive any beating from her husband. She said her mother and siblings’ narrative was not true.
Three months after, Daily Sun gathered that Iyere’s wife has to run for dear life from her matrimonial home after her husband had allegedly descended on her. She said peace had disappeared from her 14 years old marriage that produced four children.
Idiaghagbon told the reporter on the telephone that her husband placed her under duress to say that there was no problem in their home when her family members raised the alarm.
She likened her marriage to a semi-hell that she had endured in recent years. She said it amazed her how the man became heartless and always spewed resentment towards her. She lamented that her home in Irrua, Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State, has become a place of perpetual torment for her.
Her words: “The man beat me that February, but he told me to deny it on the day he called you (the reporter). But he promised that such nonsense would not happen again. He also beat my mother that time and threatened everybody with a gun. I lied to you that time so that peace would reign, and that is why I have been enduring all along. He bought the gun two years ago and has been harassing me with it.
“He beat me again on June 2 and inflicted injury on me. He punched me on my head and also used belt to flog me all over my body. It was my brother’s wife who took me to the hospital for treatment. The doctors gave me drip because I lost strength. I am now living with my elder brother in Benin.”
On what led to the recent crisis, she said: “My child who is eight years old was sick and I was taking him to different hospitals, but his health kept deteriorating. While I was taking the child about for a cure, my husband abandoned me and our child in the hospital. He went to Benin to meet his woman that gave birth to a girl for him. When I asked him why he left us alone, he flared up, asking if he was the doctor to treat the patient. I apologised to him on the telephone but I didn’t know that he was not satisfied with it.
“When he came back from Benin, he brought up the issue again. Before I could say anything, he started beating me. After the first round of beating, he asked me to cook for the labourers that were working on his farm. But I told him that I didn’t have the power to cook. Then he got angry and resumed the second round of beating.
“All this happened in the presence of my husband’s paternal grandmother. The old woman was pleading with him not to kill me. The grandmother never supported him.
“I wanted to take my last born along with me as I was leaving his house, but he refused. I need my children; I have gone to a human rights body in Benin to report the case.
“He seized all my belongings, saying that he was the one that bought all of them with his money. He vowed that I would leave his house with nothing.”
A few minutes after the reporter’s call ended with Iyere on June 17, the man called back and asked: “The first publication you made did you bother to investigate?”
And the reporter explained to him that he called him, which gave him the opportunity to explain his own part of the story that was published accordingly.
At that point, his voice rose higher, saying: “You don’t need to call me. Whatever you have at your disposal, you can go ahead and do what they asked you to do, no problem. Well, I don’t have anything to tell you because, even when the woman said that there was nothing, you still went ahead and published the story. You can go ahead and publish, if you are being paid to do it. No problem, thank you very much.”
Idiaghagbon said that she had already made a report at the state police headquarters in Benin City. She added it was necessary for her own safety.