The rift between the families of the Ibadan-based Lawyer, who was alleged to have stabbed her husband to death and that of the deceased, has continue to widen with both parties churning out conflicting reports about the incident and the character of the accused Lady Lawyer, Yewande Oyediran.
In separate exclusive interviews with our correspondent in Ibadan on Monday, spokespersons for the two families gave distinctly contrasting accounts of the regrettable incident that shook the city of Ibadan to its marrow, few weeks ago.
While a close confidant of the accused family described her as a pious person, he labeled the murdered husband as having a drinking problem.
However, the elder brother of the deceased, Hon. Adelani Adewale Oyediran, denied that his younger brother had a drinking problem and rather claimed that it was the wife that is wicked, stating that it is callous
for anybody to say that his brother, who he said was a teetotaler, was drunk on the day of the incident.
A very close friend of the accused family, who related the account of the incident and attested to the person of the accused, said she is a Bible-carrying person, who cannot hurt a fly and that she had lived a
pious life, all her life.
The witness, who is a senior Legal Practitioner in Ibadan, claimed to have known the accused parent for over four decades and that he is one of the father’s close confidants.
According to him, the accused woman, is a very responsible and God–fearing Lady, who won’t hurt a fly. Yewande is a Bible-carrying lad, who is very nice. She and her husband loves each other very well and what happened was only the handiwork of the devil.
“Her father is a Reverend in the Anglican Church, while the mother is also a responsible woman, who retired with impeccable records from the state’s Accounts General’s Office .
However, the victim’s brother, who reacted to these claims and others and on the incident, said all these claims of piety and Bible-carrying personality, being ascribed to the accused is a ruse.
“That Yewande is pious and a Bible carrying person is to the best of my mind a ruse, facade and a delusion. To any sane mind, there is no correlation between what she had done and dubbing her as a Bible carrying person.
“Yewande is nothing but madness. She is heartless and pathologically wicked. Whoever may have described her as gentle or meek should have a rethink and nothing can be farther than the obvious reality on ground.
Being a daughter of a venerable of Anglican Church has even worsened her case, because it clearly shows that her upbringing was flawed and delinquent.
“How can you comprehend that a daughter of a venerable would have such a violent, dangerous and rapacious mindset to kill and butcher her husband in such a gory state.
“Anyone dubbing Yewande as being responsible is the height of irresponsibility that one can ever imagine from a daughter of a clergyman who ought to be guided by good conduct and spartan life discipline. So it’s so shameful, idiotic and barbaric for her to be given such a good appellation of being responsible or a Bible carrying person. The reverse is absolutely the case for her,” he said.
On what transpired on the day Yewande Oyediran murdered her husband Lowo Oyediran, her mentor, who insisted that the accused is a person of good character and that she couldn’t have murdered her husband ordinarily, told our correspondent that there were more to the case than meet the eyes.
“On the day of the incident, the husband was said to have gotten home drunk around 2 pm and started beating her wife, Yewande over earlier matter bordering on the dead husband, having a love-child outside wedlock.
“They have resolved the issue earier among themselves. They have agreed that Lowo was to collecct the child at maturity, without marrying the mother.
“According to witnesses, in order to escape her furious husband, while the beating was going on, she tried to avoid further pummelling and moved towards the door, she found a scissor on the shelves and stabbed her husband to escape.
“After this, he was rushed to a clinic around the neighbourhood and he was treated for wounds. The landlord and some people in the area was said to have intervened in the matter and the matter was settled between them.
“However, later in the morning, the husband started hammering some nails into some walls in the house and the landlord and some people rushed to the house, thinking that they were quarrelling again, only for the wife to allay their fears that it was the husband, who was only trying to nail together some parts of the house and the peace makers dispersed.
“Suddenly, around 4 am in the morning, the husband started beating her again and this time, she escaped outside, only for her husband to catch up with her, with a knife and pinned her to the landlord’s car. the wife escaped and fled towards the landlords residence with the husband in hot pursuit, while climbing the steps on the house, he lost his balance and fell on the knife.
“If she had stabbed him, as being claimed, there ought to have been some bloods on the ground between their residence and the landlords, but there was nothing. Despite being a lovable fellow who was very respectful, Lowo(the husband)’s weakness was drinking. He was an orphan who was brought up by an uncle.
“Once he knew that you are one of his wife’s relatives, Lowo would prostrate for you and he took great care of the wife’s family. He and Yewande have been married for three years and they have no children of their own, but it was never a big deal between them.
“On the incident that led to the problem, on that day, it was the lady who had a child for Lowo, who is based in France that sent a message to Yetunde, with her picture and that of the love child she has for Lowo, that actually provoked the situation,” the source said.
However, Hon. Oyediran’s account on what transpired between the couple on the fateful day and the relationship between the accused and late husband, was expectedly rash.
He said that “Yewande’s relationship with every members of our family was abysmally un-african, rude, crude, uninspiring and unedifying. She never relates with anyone including family members from maternal and paternal lineage. She is very haughty, proud and highly canterkerous.
“Right from the night of her wedding, she abandoned every family members and jettisoned all of us and blocked all of us from having access to her husband.
“Conversely, Lowo was very loving to Yewande and her family members. He was extremely close to Her father, Venerable Fatoki to the extent that Lowo used to chant that his father in law was a blessing to him due to their closeness and rapport.
“However, curiously it thus appear that there is more to this their relationship than meet the eye, as time and event has proven with this dastardly and crude death of our brother. No matter the level of whatever
misunderstanding may have occurred between them, there is no justification for murder in whatever guise. She has attitude problems and guessed Lowo must have been hyptonized.
“The purveyor of such a ridiculous and treacherous comment of Lowo being a drunkard should seek God’s forgiveness, because it’s wicked to say my brother is a drunkard. Lowo is an humble, amiable, easy going,
visionary and pleasant young teetotaler prince.
“He was never given to drinking of alcohol but loved traditional African food a lot. Lowo loved food and enjoyed good food and even this, the wife denied him. It’s ridiculous and diversionary for such a comment.
The issue of Lowo being drunk was a calculated mischief. Here was a lady who does not cook for her husband, very manner-less and a recluse. Lowo was highly humorous and fun loving. He cannot beat anyone and does not have any violent trait in him at all.
He said that was always smiling and cracking jokes with everyone, and was actually planning to travel to Denmark, Germany and France for business trip, four days before he was allegedly gruesomely murdered by his wife.
“The news of having a child outside had been known to her since middle of last year, so it wasn’t a new thing to her.
“According to eye witness when the incident occurred around 12 midnight, of February 2, 2016. We were informed that Yewande always make Lowo unhappy due to her bad manners of not cooking for her husband and her nasty and shabby relationship to Lowo’s friends and family members.
“Lowo knew the import of beating a woman, hence Lowo was not given to unruly behaviour to anyone. He was properly brought up, cultured and manner-ful. Yewande first stabbed Lowo in his chest and at his
back around 12 midnight after a misunderstanding between the couple and the landlord and other tenants had to rush him to a nearby hospital for treatment.
“Subsequently, the tenant and their neighbours took time to resolve the squabble for the couple up till around 3am before they both went inside to sleep. However, according to eye witness account, around
6.10am, Lowo rushed outside from her apartment crying for help after he was butchered in his sleep by his wife but alas before he could get to the front of his landlord apartment in the same compound, he had
slumped and died.
“Eye witness account, also indicated that despite the reality that Lowo was murdered, she was still not remorseful and repentant. According to Lowo, his wife had jail-broke into his i-Pad sometimes mid-last year and saw the picture of the baby he had out of wedlock and they had quarrel over it,” Oyediran said.
Continuing, the Lowo’s elder brother, who described himself as a businessman, said that “Immediately after this quarrel between them, the father-in-law settled the squabbles for them and Yewande urged him not to let our family (Oyedirans) knows about the baby in France.
“We as a family never interfered in their affairs and allowed them to live their life as they chose. They both did the foundation laying of their house together in January 2016. All that was clear to us was that she never relates well to any family members and never allowed anyone in their house yet we kept praying for them.
“The father-in-law allegedly brokered truce for the couple in his house when Yewande got wind of the news and no family of the Oyedirans was invited or involved in the truce.
“As at the time of his death, Lowo was participating in the 50-day fasting and prayer programme of the Redeemed Church. He even asked us his family members, to key into that abstinence programme,” he said.
On why the family expressed fear over getting justice in the case as epxpressed by the family’s lawyer, after the initial arraignment, Oyediran explained the family’s concern.
“The family was apprehensive of the whole thing. The family is agitated because as a lawyer who understand the full import of her action, she should be totally responsible for her action. As a staff of the department of public prosecution, there is apprehension that there might be travesty of justice. That is the more reason why the family is clamouring for the fiat of the court to grant us an
independent jury to prosecute this case without bias because, he who must go to equity must go with a clean hand.
“You can’t be a judge in your own case. We can all see the preferential treatment of her masquerading her face and being chauffeur-driven in an Ambulance bus rather than a Black Maria.
“What the family want is fairness, equity and Justice. We don’t want the case to be aborted or swept under the carpets due to the influence of her family members in high places. The whole wide world is interested in this case and are cautiously watching us. This is certainly a test for the judiciary.
Asked if the family can ever forgive the alleged killer of their brother, Oyediran said that his response would be based on what the Holy Bible and the law of the land say about murder, stating that the question of forgiveness is of God.
“He who murder sleep shall sleep no more. Remember that Lowo was grandstandingly butchered through first attempt before he was finally silenced by Yewande in the wee hour of 2nd of February 2016. Lowo was a young
promising bridge builder, loved and admired by everyone due to his humility, humor and mien.
“Lowo’s death has created a big vacuum in our family. Even though he was a young man, yet he was a bridge builder, pace setter, inspirator-per- excellence, a workaholic, lover of people who was generous to a fault. Lowo’s death was a devastating rude shock to all of us his family, his friends all over the world, his admirers and loved ones and the entire Gbongan community, home and abroad,” Oyediran said.
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