• Workers accuse principal, colleague of using juju to kill
Wole Balogun, Ado-Ekiti
There is fire on the mountain in the Federal Science and Technical College, Usi-Ekiti, Ido-Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State. Its principal, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Kolawole, is in the eye of the storm as she has been accused of deploying diabolical means to allegedly kill a senior staff, Pastor Steve Adeegbe, and already penned down the names of some others for same fate.
Students also turned their back on the principal as they recently protested against her, calling her names and carrying placards that portrayed her as being diabolical, wicked, and high handed.
Kolawole denied all the allegations, claiming that the students were incited by some members of the staff who didn’t like her and wanted to tarnish her image.
Trouble started in the school recently when a senior staff and one well loved by majority of the staff, Pastor Adeegbe, died in a motor accident. Members of the staff were not only aggrieved but smelt a rat. They concluded that since the principal and one of her loyalists, Awe, had allegedly made some statements about the deceased and some staffers at loggerheads with them, they must have a hand in the tragedy that befell him.
Some members of the staff added that their suspicion grew stronger when they viewed that principal’s disposition to the tragedy lacked sympathy as she even allegedly denied them the privilege to hold a service of songs in honour of the deceased inside the school hall.
The enraged staff members who had worked very closely with the Principal alleged that she had visited many spiritualists in search of some diabolical means to deal with her perceived enemies in the school.
Deborah, a casual worker attached to the Principal’s Office told Daily Sun: “Our principal is a very wicked woman. All I am saying I have said to her face when we were asked to air our views on the tragedy befalling our school.
“My travails with her began when she first came up to me and asked me to take her to spiritualists who can help her deal with her enemies. I was first afraid and went home to tell my husband and he discouraged me on the matter.
“But when madam persisted, I took her to one Alfa in Ido but I had gone behind her to warn the Alfa against doing anything evil thing for madam and he agreed to just collect her money and do as I said. The school bursar among other names were mentioned. I once warned the bursar to pray very well. When pastor Steve died, madam told me that staff members who don’t want her would continue to die one after the other.
“I also remember a number of occasions that madam used me to bury some charms in strategic spots in the school premises. There was a time she took me and her driver to one herbalist in Osogbo, Osun State. I never knew what she discussed with him because she asked me to excuse them while they held a chat. But I remember that we entered the place turning our backs.”
The principal’s driver, Danladi, has a similar story: “If I am telling lies against the principal, Almighty God is seeing me and He should punish me. Truth is that all that Deborah said is truth. Madam principal warned me not to tell anybody about the Osogbo trip. There was a time we went to Lokoja, madam principal asked me to stop and she carried a concoction and threw it into the river. I can swear with Quran on what I have said.”
The bursar of the school, Mr. Agbaje Kolawole, said: “I am one of the closest persons to the principal. I am very close to her husband because he is a very well refined man. But the first thing I did that got the principal annoyed with me was when she used a foul language on a staff and we had to gang up to condemn her for using such language against her.
“Another incident that happened was when we went to the burial of a former staff. We had to borrow money to go to the place on our way, we almost lost our life. She never cared for us and didn’t even call while we were on her way.
“The principal before her called us several times, but here was our incumbent principal whom we went to represent but she never called. But when we returned and asked her why she behaved that way, she said that she had a premonition that we would have an accident and that got me really annoyed because it showed that she did not care for me.
“The grouse we had with her is her highhandedness and her attitude towards the death of Adeegbe, a senior staff of the school. That she could be so unconcerned and uncaring towards such a tragic development. I can say it anywhere before the Minister of Education and even the President that I regret ever working with our principal, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Kolawole because of her attitude.”
When approached Kolawole, although, she was first reluctant to speak saying she is a civil servant who is not supposed to speak with the media. But when pressed further and confronted with the allegations leveled against her, she opened up:
“I have some enemies among the staff members who don’t like me and they are behind my travails. They have poisoned the minds of the students against me and that is why you see the students saying terrible lies against me.
“The whole problem began when the staff had issues on the their cooperative society and they said one of the staff members simply identified as Awe allegedly made an evil pronouncement that he would draw blood from some staff for offending him. I was shocked and I instructed the Vice Principal, Administration, to caution Awe and even issued him a query to that effect. We asked him to withdraw the statement three times but he refused.
“Later, Pastor Adeegbe had an accident and died. I don’t know anything about his death and I didn’t do any charm against him. All that Deborah and my driver are saying are lies they were taught to say against me.
“I think what actually made them to do this to me is because they approached me for huge amount of money but I could only give them very small portion of it that I could get. Deborah asked me for N150,000 for her child’s school fees, but I could only afford to give her N30,000. I think she is not happy with that. The driver also asked me for big amount of money and I only gave him a token.
“On Adeegbe issue, I didn’t allow them to do the service of songs in the school premises when they said their church wanted it done here because I wanted to prevent a crisis that I sensed was already brewing in the school then. They had already caused a stir they protested against me and even locked me outside the school premises. They didn’t allow me to take some of my personal effects up till now.
“It is not true that I didn’t show any empathy for the dead. We had a minute silence for the man and even didn’t allow lessons to hold in the school for some days.”
The principal who didn’t deny going to a certain Alfa and a spiritualist in Osogbo for some help, however, said she was framed up by the cleaner:
“The whole story is false. She and those people framed me up in order to extort me. I would have taken up the matter to the police but I just left it for God. I don’t know anything about the charms she is talking about, “
Also, speaking, Awe, who didn’t deny placing a cause of drawing blood on some people he felt didn’t like him, said he did so because his name as one of the debtors was exposed deliberately to mock him during the cooperative society meeting. He, however, said he felt bad that a staff of the school, Adeegbe had to die days after his pronouncement.