activist and the president of the rights groups, Women
Arise for Change Initiative. She spearheaded the arrest of
the men who tortured three Ejigbo women last year. The
men were recently arraigned in court for conspiring to
murder. But it's no longer certain that one of the victims,
Juliana, is dead. What Dr. Joe wrote below...
Until that day some two months ago after we
returned from Benin Republic to get clearance
from their Interpol to excavate Juliana's body
on forensic examination, I still carried the
believe in my head that Juliana was
underneath the mold of earth, near which I
stood to promise her justice.
Maybe till now, I still do, because it sounds
strange and mysterious to me that a family we
had stood solidly for, even when we were yet
to know or meet with them, carrying out
protests and disturbing every institution for
investigations, would turn back and suddenly
change their story, which they made us in turn
share to the world. Continue..
That voice from Baba-Ibeji as we journeyed to the
Federal SARS office to collect feedback from the
police on their meeting with the Interpol in Benin
still resonates in my ears; "Doctor, I am sorry I
did not tell you this before. Maybe it was the
informant's fault that she told us to always
maintain that Juliana was dead until all is over".
That was Baba-Ibeji's voice, Juliana's father,
known in the Ejigbo pepper sodomy case as the
Palm wine tapper.
I thought I did not hear him well, he said it again,
in imbalanced Yoruba language. I was confused, I
asked what he meant. After his explanations, it
dawned slowly on me that it must be the reason
they had sent for me from the Federal SARS,
asking me to bring him and his son along.
We had gone with the Police team from Nigeria to
Benin Republic, with mission to gain easy
permission to exhume the corpse for forensic
check. However the day finished without
achieving it. I had to return to Lagos very late
that night from Benin Republic to catch flight
back to Abuja, the National Confab required my
input.
But we left the police over there, to continue with
the assignment. We had thought we would do the
forensics same day, but that did not happen due
to long process of obtaining clearance from their
Interpol.
I left late that night for Lagos. But Baba-Ibeji did
not tell me what they told their own police in
Benin Republic, and now to Nigeria's police when
they arrived their yard for the assignment. We
had communicated many times after then. But he
did not still tell me they had a new story for the
police than I knew, of Juliana's death.
Now in the car, he explained that Juliana was not
physically dead, but that he thought we were the
same (Women Arise) with the informant who
brought him to us and collected the reward
announced by the Lagos State House of Assembly.
He said the woman (the informant) knew about it
from day one, that Juliana was not physically
dead to their knowledge, but got missing and was
concluded to have died. He said he thought I also
knew about the informant's position, asking that
they maintain that she was dead whenever asked.
Terribly, I got disturbed!
I immediately began to think of many things; how
I had gone to the grave; how I had made promises
for justice at the grave site (which I was just
being told no longer belongs to Juliana); how I
had made the world believe the same thing I was
told about Juliana's death; all the efforts; my
integrity...and the rest.
We were on the third mainland bridge and
heading for Adeniji Adele, office of the Federal
SARS. I felt like jumping out on the car and into
the lagoon. The day was saved by two men in the
car with me asides from the palm wine tapper.
Leye, the Women Arise Project Officer and Segun
O'Law, the citizen reporter who had been
capturing footages and rendering a documentary
from the case. Himself, O'Law, almost broke
down, but as he saw me go mute, thinning and
profusely sweating, he grew himself back into the
characteristic of a man so as to help me pull up
fair approximation to a balance. I wanted to
probe further, but O'Law cut it, making him
suspend any further explanation yet, until we
reached our destination. I understand O'Law
wanted me to gain a some recovery from the
shock first, before we'd proceed on that, but I was
anxious.
O'Law prevailed, laying off the discussion
temporarily. But I had almost lost sense of
myself.
We assembled on the Federal SARS premises, and
decided to talk further before going in to meet our
prospective host. I had lost my appetite, but was
famished. I knew more that day, that a worried
mind is a quick drain pipe of body fluids. I could
not tell difference between my own mass (or how
flexible it felt at that time) from the size of a
broom stick. I felt lighter for what a little amount
of breeze would displace. My vision blurred, and
I fast dazed.
Suddenly, our prospective host stepped out. He
was leaving for other assignment. The officer
noticed something was wrong with me and spent
a great deal of time chatting with us about others
things. He requested we fix another time,
between when he called me to say he understood
what had happened to me, which was his reason
for fixing another time.
Sincerely, words cannot capture it. I thought I
would not survive it. Nothing ever shocked or
shook me like that. It was like a magnitude of
tsunami capable off throwing a city into
irreparable calamity hitting me. had been
tortured by the military, jailed, shot on my leg,
robbed in gun point and faced multiple tragedies,
they did not shake me as such. But something
threatening my integrity was a worse hit. What
would I tell the world now, whose attention I had
turned on the Ejigbo case?
I began calling all that stood with us since start of
the case. I called in the OPD officials, who are in
collaboration with us on the matter. I hinted
them. More people entered the disturbance.
Long story short, we invited the OPD attorney
along for the next day fixed for meeting at the
Federal SARS. Now, we were formally made
aware of the news; we could not establish
"murder" in the case, because victim's family said
they weren't sure she physically died, but they
had only buried her spirit in line with certain
traditional practice. Baba-Ibeji insisted it was
their practice to call over and bury the spirit of a
person that has been missing for a long time, and
later presumed to be dead. He said in their
culture, if they called such person's spirit, who
had gone missing for a while, the person would
return. Otherwise, the person is dead. I had heard
about people using charms to call their children
home from abroad, they were distant stories yet,
until Baba-Ibeji's strange narrations here. Even if
that was, we had become too close not to have
disclosed that to me, even till the moment I
insisted he showed to me the grave site and I
traveled with our team to see it in Porto Novo.
His excuse; he thought the informant woman was
part of our team, and he already disclosed that to
her when she located him and brought him to us
for the announced reward. He said the informant
told him not to say that again, but to simply say
she was dead. O'Law then wondered aloud; "but
you burst into tears the day we asked you about
Juliana and it was in tears you announced to us
that she died. Was that part of a rehearsed line
with the informant", no convincing answer came.
So, the police would charge the suspects (the
"pepper-trators" as O'Law called them in the
documentary) only for inflicting bodily injuries,
attempted murder and all the sorts. No murder
charge, but is Juliana alive?
Although the police also said they met with local
chiefs in the victim's village and were told Juliana
is alive and had even just had a baby in a local
hospital there, Baba-Ibeji insisted their rite never
failed and that Juliana is dead since she did not
return after the rite. I, OPD, Baba-Ibeji, O'Law and
the entire Women Arise team kept asking, and till
now, who saw Juliana and where is she? No
answer yet. If the police claimed Juliana was not
yet dead from what they were told by locals in
Benin Republic and therefore expunged allegation
of murder from the charges, it behooves of the
institution to probe further and help locate
Juliana; that I insist on. It will be my greatest joy
if Juliana is not dead, so she will come and tell the
world her own story, herself.
I still believed something must have changed the
story with the family, perhaps, Juliana is in that
tomb.
Could they have been bribed to change the story?
But I give him and family some money each time
we see so that they don't feel lack as such. Could
the family possibly be afraid at the news that
police wants to excavate the tomb for forensics
and therefore claim she is not in it? Could this be;
or could that be? Many questions, no answer.
I asked him if the police could still go ahead and
open the tomb, at least to confirm if Juliana was
buried there or not. But "No", he said.
The palm wine tapper insisted it was abominable
for any corpse ever buried in their culture to be
opened for any reason whatsoever. Even though I
respect people's diverse cultures and traditional
practices, my doubt for him on this one grew, yet
more.
He said there was a body buried in that tomb he
showed us but it belonged to his own mother. By
practice, he said, missing Juliana's spirit was
called to join his own late mother in his tomb. He
said by that rite, if Juliana was still alive even
though missing, she would return home, but after
more than a period of eight months if she did not
return after that rite, then it could only mean she
is dead.
And dead, they had concluded, since it was
abundantly more than a year yet she was missing
and the rite to find or bury her had been
conducted (according to Baba-Ibeji, the palm
wine tapper). What I should add is that it was in a
herbalist place in their hometown that she was
taken for treatment, and one day they got there to
the news that she walked away from there and
had not been found ever since. Although another
account has it that a man came to pick her from
the herbalist place and later they saw her having
a baby in a local hospital. Whichever is true, she
was missing and by their rite, she was dead from
there. Otherwise, the rite would have brought her
back home; some Nollywood kind of story, you
know!
I still have some bothering and we need help as
under listed;
1. Since Baba-Ibeji keeps denying his daughter is
still alive, even as the police claims so, the police
could just help prove beyond doubt that she
exists. Simply bring her out. Although I
understand they could not continue to hold the
suspects in detention but had to take them to
court, listing some charges. So, they had to
remove "murder" for now that there is doubt as
to that claim. However, public opinion still
charges murder, except otherwise those who
claimed they saw her bring her for us all to see
2. Where was Juliana last seen by those who
claimed they saw her having a baby in a hospital.
Does the hospital have no name? baba-Ibeji
should tell the police where the herbalist is, so he
can tell us how a "patient" suddenly got missing.
If she is dead, we should have her body, not bury
her "spirit"
3. From the gruesome video which brought this
case to world attention, it was clear to everyone
that "someone" could die from that long moment
of violent organic torture; including "pepper-
trating" her genitals with help of hard sticks;
terrific!
4. Does anyone know Ajase in Benin Republic
well? Are u aware of any culture against forensic
examination of dead persons?
5. Who has seen Juliana? Please we'd love to see
her too, if you have any information that she still
alive, please be generous with information and
kindly share
6. If I see Juliana today, or any day after, the
"pepper-trators" can still be validly charged for
the offences for which they were arraigned last
week. But if not, then, where is Juliana?
Dr. Joe Odumakin is President of Women Arise!
t: @DrJoeOdumakin
f: facebook.com/jokeiodumakin
web: www.DrJoeOdumakin.com
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