From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
Mr Oluwasola and Mrs Adedoyin Fadare, both from Ekiti State, are the parents of the late Demilade Fadare, the seven- year-old girl that was murdered on December 6 in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. She was allegedly killed by one Sikemi Olajiga, 31, daughter of Pastor Olajiga, a minister with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Ado-Ekiti.
Fadare, a civil servant, works and resides in Lagos State while his wife, also a civil servant, and their children live at Boluwaduro Street, Adehun, in the Ekiti State capital.
The late Demilade turned 7 on October 8, 2021, about two months before she was despatched to her grave
Saturday Sun reporter recently sat with the disconsolate parents of the young girl in Ado-Ekiti. And they poured out their grief.
Her mother, Mrs Fadare, explained how the tragic incident happened.
Relationship with my daughter’s alleged killers
We have been living in that house since 2016 and our house is just a stone’s throw from the house of the Olajigas. The only demarcation between our compound and theirs is just a fence. If you are at the backyard of our house you will be looking at their house directly.
As for our relationship with them, we are not cordial and we are not enemies. Pastor Olajiga parks his car in our compound. I used to drop my kids in their house, but when they started complaining of being maltreated, I stopped dropping them there. My kids call Pastor Olajiga and his wife grandpa and grandma.
How incident happened
On December 6, at 8:45am, I sent Demilade to get pap from the next street and I was doing the laundry. When by 9am I didn’t see her, I told her sisters to stay inside, that I wanted to go and call Demilade and know what might be delaying her. I went there, and the man said he told her that it was only one pap that was available, and that she had returned home. I went back home, I called her name, I asked her sisters, they said she was not back. I went back to the pap seller. Then I went to Alhaja’s place, as she also sells pap. Alhaja said she didn’t see her but Alhaja’s children said they saw her. I went back home, I didn’t see her. I went back to the middle of that road and started shouting her name. Pastor Olajiga came out of his house and he said ah, God will make you see her. When Alhaja heard my voice, she joined me and some other people too. We started shouting her name together. I went her school to check, but she was not there. I ran back to the house, I picked her younger sisters and dropped them with another person on the street and I started looking for her. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours. I called my husband who had travelled back to Lagos the previous day and he contacted the Flush department of Ekiti State. I kept on shouting that wherever Demilade was they should bring her out. From there, I was told to go to the Civil Defence office, I went there and made my report, I wrote my statement. My husband called and told me that some pastors had been praying and they said Demilade was in that street, that we should go back and start from house to house, that we would find her. I went back to the street. I thought the Yahoo boys in the area might have kidnapped her. I stood in front of their house and started shouting. People had barricaded the roads, that there should be no movement of vehicles or motorcycles out of the street. I received a call from the Civil Defence office that I didn’t sign a particular document that I should come back. Meanwhile, the Flush operatives had decided that they would start a house-to-house search. I went back to the Civil Defence office, and by the time I got back home they said they had searched all the houses on the street, that nothing was found. The search went on for hours, I didn’t see Demilade. I had contacted my friends that Demilade was missing, and flyers were made, the social media had been awash with her pictures in raising the alarm and people had started praying. From there, I went to the police station at Okeila, I was told it was not yet up to 24 hours, that it must be 24 hours before they would declare her missing, that we should go to the one at Okesa, that there is a control room there that they will radio the information all around in case she has been transported away from that street so that the patrol team on the road will be able to get the information. I went there. They got the information. It was radioed all around. From there, I headed to the Ewi’s Palace to lay my complaints. From the palace we went to Amotekun office at Poly Road. Different search parties were going one.
When I came back in the evening, I heard that Pastor Olajiga didn’t allow the Flush operatives to enter his apartment, that his wife took the key to work. Mr Olajiga takes his wife to work every morning, and he comes to our compound to pick his car as early as 6:30 or 7:00am. Then he would return home before 9:00am. That means he was back already after dropping his wife at work when he came out to meet me. I started wondering why he would lie to the operatives that his wife took the keys to work. But I just waved it off because he had joined us in the search.
Meanwhile, when Demilade’s playmate came back from school that day, she said she saw Demilade that morning standing in front of our gate talking with someone. The girl said the person was wearing a blue top and black clothes. Then I remembered that on my way to the palace, I saw Sikemi on the road. What she wore was like what the little girl described. The search went on and on till late in the midnight. I could not sleep, my husband could not sleep. We were out on the street. I said if they kidnapped her, they would probably drop her in the middle of the night and she wouldn’t be able to come home on her own in the dark. We didn’t go inside, we were out till 3:00 am. We were even sitting rightly opposite the Olajiga’s house.
I did not even know they were not at home. When Mr Olajiga’s wife came back from work, she joined us in prayers that we would see Demilade, she was speaking in tongues and praying, the husband was praying too.
But I noticed something, in the morning when I was looking for Demilade, Pastor Olajiga was putting on a blue shirt when he came out. Later when I saw him, he was putting on an orange shirt. It was the second day when I heard that my daughter was killed by the Olajigas that my instinct went there. Perhaps it was after they killed and cleaned her blood, probably his shirt was stained that was why he changed it. Sikemi did not change her clothes till she was found the next day.
There was no stain of blood on her clothes. Now he is claiming that Sikemi is mad, that she is the one that killed Demilade. She did not change her clothes, there was no stain of blood on her. So, his lies are so transparent and I still want to see them and ask what my family has done to them to deserve this horrible thing. I don’t know why they have done this to my family.
“It was on Tuesday, December 7 that I was told that my daughter was murdered by the Olajigas. I didn’t know people in the area had known late in the evening on the day of the incident and nobody told me anything. People had told me in the afternoon that all of them were going to do a vigil, that nobody was going to sleep. But I noticed that they all just dispersed and went home. They all left and I was wondering what happened. It was me, my husband, my husband’s friend and Alhaja, the four of us that sat in the middle of the road, waiting for the kidnapper to drop Demilade. My husband said we should go inside at 3:00am, and we went inside. When it was 4:30am, I ran out again and started looking for Demilade, in fact, I was throwing stones on gates that neighbours should come out, that they were not even bothered anymore and they all could sleep overnight. I was so furious. I sat in front of Joy Estate till 8:00am then they stylishly took me away from there and took me to a friend’s place, from there to my in-laws place. That was when they told me that my daughter had been murdered.
“Now, Mr Olajiga is claiming that Sikemi is mad. Sikemi that I know has her full senses in check. Sikemi grinds pepper. She still ground the pepper and moin-moin that we ate at home. She sews clothes. Sikemi once came to my house about some months ago to borrow my laptop and I refused to give her. It was my husband that said I should lend her after she told my husband that she wanted to use it to type church programme. Only God knows what she did, may be she took the pictures of my children from my laptop I don’t know.
They said Sikemi is mad, there were some neighbours that did drop their children in their house until they left our street. Those people were dropping two children with them every day until they moved out of our street some months ago, but before they moved out, those children were staying in that house from morning till night until their parents come back, Sikemi didn’t kill those children. Sikemi is not mad at all.
“Will Mr Olajiga say he didn’t know when Sikemi brought Demilade inside? Because there is only one entrance to their house. Will he say he didn’t know when Demilade came inside? Will Mr Olajiga say he didn’t know someone was inside? After it happened and I was shouting my daughter’s name, will he say he didn’t know what was going on? All this period Pastor Olajiga had taken his wife to the office and was back home. So, saying that Sikemi is mad is a big lie. I want justice for my daughter. I want nothing but Justice. Demilade did not deserve this at all. Demilade was loved by everybody. She was an innocent girl. She wanted a good life. She said she wanted to be an actor, that she wanted people to see her on the television and in movies. She just learnt a new dance step and she was showing me on Saturday before the incident happened on Monday.
Demilade’s father speaks
Demilade’s father, Mr Oluwasola Fadare also spoke with the reporter. His words: I had been in Ado-Ekiti to see my family and had spent some days with them. I left on Sunday, December 5. I work in Lagos State and I come on a visit periodically to see them. On Monday morning, which was December 6, I had called them earlier that morning because I used to call them every morning before they went to school, when they get back from school, that is if they are in session in school and before they sleep at night. Even while I was around with them I was the one who drove them to school for their Christmas Carol, which came up on Thursday December 2.
On Monday morning, my wife called me, that she sent Demilade on an errand and that she had been looking for her, that she was nowhere to be found. Immediately, I called my friends here in Ado-Ekiti who are security agents. I called the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) and Flush department and I called some officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) that I know in Ado-Ekiti.
Though, before I left Lagos that Monday morning for Ado-Ekiti, I had called a pastor and the pastor said Demilade was somewhere close to our house where we live, that we should be swift about it, that she was held hostage. Later, one of my friends called me back that they had searched all the houses, and barricaded every entrance and exit to the street. Because we stay around Yahoo boys, the search was focused on Yahoo boys on the street. When my friend called me, he said they went to a house, that they met a man sitting outside that they told the man that they had been searching around, they identified themselves, that they wanted to search his house but the man told them that the wife had taken the key to the whole apartment to work. My friend said someone was passing by and the person said this man is a pastor, so, they left the place and conducted a recheck on other houses.
“Much later, I was worried while I was on my way from Lagos. When I got to Ekiti around past five or to six in the evening, I told my friend who came to pick me up from the park that I wanted to drop in front of Joy Estate. So, immediately I dropped in front of Joy Estate, I sighted Pastor Olajiga.
His house is not far from Joy Estate. I was at the building after Joy Estate. Immediately he saw me, he fidgeted. This was somebody that parked his car in our house. We call him grandpa. I even felt he wanted to sympathise with me but instead, he went to his car. He didn’t say anything. But I noticed inside his car were his wife in the front seat and his two female children at the back. Upon sighing me, he went towards his car, entered it and drove off.
“It was the following day that I got to know that Pastor Olajiga went to report at the police station at Okeila that his daughter had murdered Demilade. It was the following day in the morning that they called me. Immediately I got to the street, I was driving and my friend said why would I be driving by myself? They told me to come down. I saw a police van stationed in front of Pastor Olajiga’s house. There is a prison officer that stays on our street. So we all went – myself, my cousin, the prison controller and the police officers to the police station. From there, we went to the state CID. That was where they narrated everything to me that Mr Olajiga came to report on Monday evening that his insane daughter murdered Demilade, I wept.
So, at the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) homicide department, I requested that I needed to see Mr and Mrs Olajiga since they told me that they came to report and were detained, to ask some certain questions from them. They brought Pastor Olajiga and his wife out, I asked that what have I done to them to deserve this? We are neighbours, you park your car in our compound, I don’t know what I have done. We are not age mates. We don’t have anything in common. Mr Olajiga didn’t utter a word at that point while I was asking the questions, but the wife said “We are not the ones.”
After meeting with the DCP and Pastor Olajiga and his wife, my wife called that I should help her get some of her clothes. I went to the house. While leaving the house, someone called me that Sikemi had been accosted. Pastor Olajiga’s daughter, the alleged killer of Demilade, that they had accosted her at Carwash junction, Adehun, Ado-Ekiti. My cousin drove me down to the place. When I got there, the mob was so much. Sikemi was found with a brand new two edged cutlass, a bunch of keys to their house, two beef sausage rolls (Gala),and a debit card ,all in a sack. They held and walked her to her father’s house. The mob was too much. On getting to their house, when I noticed the mob was about putting tyre round her neck. I went to beg the mob not to kill her so that I could get justice.
“At the time I was inside the car, the police vans were already around, I think about four or five of their vans. By God’s grace and with the efforts of the police, we were able to arrest the situation. We got her into the van and drove her off.
Questions
“But I am still left with some questions. They said Sikemi is not mentally stable, but she grinds pepper, she sews clothes. If she is mad, why is she staying with her parents? Mr Olajiga’s grandchildren do come around. If she is mad, she should have in one way or the other attacked them. No sane person will live with someone who is mad. You claim she is insane, I believe anyone who is insane should be confined or maybe should be going through a psychiatric treatment. I am still trying to wrap my head round the whole scenario. We see him as a man of God and accorded him that respect. He parked his car in our compound and even had a portion where he parked his car.
“I went to the mortuary to see Demilade on Tuesday. I saw her body. With what I saw, she struggled with her killers. They slit her throat and they stabbed her. I want justice on this matter. My family wants justice.”