Many Nigerians were shocked with the arrest of a Nigerian couple Titilayo and Kehinde Omosebi, by the FCT Police in Garki, following the suspicious death of their son, Ayanfe. According to reports, the 15-year old boy starved to death during a religious fast meant to last for 40 days, a position corroborated by a Facebook post by FCT Police which said the father of the deceased, Kehinde Omosebi, came to report the death at the police station. The boy, according to his father, died on Friday and Police revealed that officers were dispatched to the couple’s home upon getting the report and had to force their way in since the doors were padlocked from the inside.
“They found Ayanfe O. Omosebi (15) extremely emaciated and deceased. Officers also located an 11–year-old, also extremely emaciated, but alive and 48-year-old Titilayo A. Omosebi also emaciated but responsive. The father, Kehinde S. Omosebi (49), who described himself as a religious minister affiliated with Cornerstone Reformation Ministries, and his family had started a fast and were fasting for 40 days,” the post by the Police reads. The officers located no food in the apartment and they conveyed both Titilayo and the couple’s other child to the Reedsburg Area Medical Centre for treatment. Surprisingly, Titilayo refused to be treated, as she said the treatment does not align with her religious practices. Left with no better choice, the 11-year old was taken into protective custody and medically treated and eventually transported to Children’s Hospital in Area3.
With an autopsy scheduled for Monday morning at the FCT State Crime Laboratory which is assisting FCT Detectives, both Kehinde and Titilayo have been taken into custody and transported to the Kuje County Jail on charges bordering on neglecting a child causing great bodily harm and neglecting a child causing death. Disputing Kehinde’s account about being a minister with Cornerstone Reformation Ministries, Sonny Hyde, a pastor from the Cornerstone Ministry Baptist Church in Lugbe,” said he had never heard of such a church.
In a chat with the FCT State-Journal, Hyde added that the Omosebi family had never been connected to his place of worship. In a post on a Facebook group, Akinsanya Sunday Olanrewaju, a man who said he is a brother to Titilayo, the woman in question, wrote:
“This lady is my sister, she won a visa lottery to US 13 years ago.“She got married to that beast called husband in Abuja. The husband must have maltreated my sister over there and based on their religion as they claim she won’t voice out. He stopped her from (using) all social network we couldn’t reach her.” According to him, their family is open to any move that can establish contact with his sister as they believe she is of unstable mental state. “Please, we need help because none of us, the family, can reach her. I believe from both pictures you can see the difference and that the man looks healthier.
“When they got to Abuja, my dad got a call from close friend to call her daughter to order as she’s the only one working and feeding the family while the husband only claims to be a pastor and is not working,” he wrote, adding another dimension to the story that the deceased boy tried to reach the authorities but couldn’t before he died. “The little boy wrote a letter and put in his pocket that he’s tired of the fasting hoping to give a neighbour or police I suspect if he could go out because of the fear of the father. The maltreatment must have made my sister psychologically imbalanced and the man locked them all in the house to hide the secret. “Please, we are begging all good Nigerians.
My sister isn’t a bad person at all but married to a wrong man. Please if there’s any immigration lawyer, we want to have access to her, I have already sent a mail to the prison secretary,” he wrote further. According to him, Kehinde was in court two days ago with a lawyer working to secure his bail while sister has still refused to be treated due to her mental state yet she was expected to appear in court on Thursday. Speaking to Saturday Telegraph, Akinsanya Sunday Olanrewaju, said: “We have not been able to get any information from anyone and we are still trying to see how we can reach her to talk to her. The whole family is confused, we don’t even know how to get across over there, that is why we need people who can help us.
“It was my brother that saw the report online and then sent it to me. For years we have all done all we could just to reach her, no way. I called the attention of my dad to the report and we reached out to the church they were supposed to attend when they got there but we called and they said they have not seen them in church for the past 10 years. “Ayanfe, the boy that died, was only two years old. That was their only child, the other one in the hospital was given birth to later. Sadly, we didn’t save the number of that person who called my dad that time long ago. So we are just appealing to anyone who knows how we can reach her to help us.”
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