Many would cry foul and declare his action as abominable. But 44-year-old Samson Adeyemo sees nothing wrong in sleeping with his own daughter and impregnating her.
Indeed the Iragbiji, Osun State-born phone repairer is now at daggers drawn with members of his family who he accused of conspiring to terminate the pregnancy.
He insisted that one of the greatest things that had happened in his life was the express instruction he allegedly received from God not only to sleep with his daughter but also to marry her.
Adeyemo, who is popularly known in his Powerline Road, Sefu Ota, Ibafo, Ogun State as Siridua, told Saturday Punch that violent death loomed over the head of whoever was responsible for the termination of the pregnancy that his daughter was carrying for him. �Whoever spilled the blood of my child will also have their own blood spilled,� he threatened.
Justifying his action, he said he received an instruction from God during one of his prayer sessions about seven months ago to have sex with 18-year-old Aanu, the last of his three children.
�I cried when I got the instruction,� he recalled. �I cried to God and said, �Why? Have sex with my own chid? What will people say?� I began to pray harder but God said He was the one that ordered me to do so.
�When my pleading with the Lord failed, I called my daughter and told her that God said I should have sex with her. She shouted and said, �Daddy, your own daughter?� She then asked me whether God said she would become pregnant if I had sex with her. But I could not provide an answer to that because I did not ask God. And since she is a girl I have trained in the ways of God, she agreed and I began to have sex with her.��
Adeyemo whose three children are boy and two girls, said his wife left the children behind when she deserted him about 15 years ago. His son and first born, 22-year-old Segun, holds a secondary school certificate and helps him in his phone repair business. The second born, 20-year-old Bimpe, was also living with him before she relocated to Iragbiji to live with her grandmother, while Aanu remained with him in his two-room apartment in Ibafo.
Adeyemo said he called Segun and Bimpe and told them about the instruction he had received from God. They both expressed shock but did nothing to discourage it.
But not long after he started sleeping with Aanu, Adeyemo said he received another instruction to start sleeping with Bimpe too. �When I heard this, I cried endlessly. I said, �God, but you know I am yet to come to terms with the strange command to sleep with my last born. Now you want me to start having sex with Bimpe.� But God said he had made me king over the whole world, so I should not hesitate to do according to His instructions.
�So, when Bimpe came back from her school in Ile-Ife, I called her and told her that God said I should be sleeping with her. She said it was not possible. She was not persuaded by my explanations and she became angry and left. But I continued to sleep with Aanu.�
Adeyemo admitted that he was once taken to a healing home after a mental illness, but he said he was afflicted with madness because he refused to heed a call from God to work for Him.
He said, �God had been calling me to work for him even as a kid, but I refused to heed the call. That was why I got afflicted with madness and my parents took me to Olode Ife for cure. I was a tailor before I heed the call of God. I remember that after I had Segun and Bimpe, I suffered sexual dysfunction. I went into prayers for days, promising God that if he cured me of the dysfunction and I was able to have a child afterward, I would dedicate that child to God.
�The very day I finished the prayers, I slept with my wife and she conceived my last born. That was why I named her Aanuoluwapo (God is merciful). So, if you understand very well, you will know that God probably heard my vow when I said I would dedicate the child to Him if He cured me of sexual dysfunction.
�God told me that He had made me the king over the world. So, when God told me to start sleeping with her, I began to remember what had told God before I had her.�
Adeyemo�s apartment also serves as a church, attended only by him and his children. It was during one of the sessions that Aanu broke the news of her pregnancy about six months ago. She told her father that she had missed her period and feared that she was pregnant.
Adeyemo said, �She said I did not tell her she would be pregnant. I was surprised too because I did not have the instruction that she would be pregnant. I started praying, and I prayed very hard until God revealed that He was the one working, and that Aanu should become my wife. God said since I am the king, He had decided to make Aanu a princess. I was happy and I informed Segun and Bimpe about the happening.�
But two weeks ago, Adeyemo returned home from his shop and found it locked. His five-month pregnant daughter was nowhere to be found, a situation he found very strange.
He said, �I know that she didn�t have any friend around except she went to my neighbour�s house. I went there to look for her but no one had any hint about her movement. I prayed and God told me to relax. I cooked the things I had bought, then I ate and slept. The next day, I decided to travel home to my mother in the village to ask whether Aanu was with her. When I reached the village, Aanu was not there. I then narrated what happened and she was alarmed. I tried to make her understand that I was only carrying out God�s instructions. Then, I called my other two children and accused them of aiding their sister to run away from home since they were the only people whom knew what had happened, but they denied aiding her.�
Next, Adeyemo visited his sister in Gbagada, Lagos, but he did not meet her in her shop where she sells groceries. In anger, he turned everything in the shop upside down and left a message that he gave her 24 hours to return Aanu to him or risk more violence.
He said, �I seized her child but people prevailed on me to release him. I know that my family does not want the world to know what is happening, but it is because they don�t understand. The next day, Aanu came back home and I was happy.�
But his joy was short-lived as he discovered while they slept together in the night, that Aanu�s tummy had become flat. �I touched her breasts and they were wet. Then, I noticed that she was having pads in her pant. How could a pregnant person be wearing pads?
�When the day broke, I asked Aanu what happened to her pregnancy, but she did not answer me, so I beat her. I asked her who was responsible for the termination of the pregnancy but she said she only took drugs. That was when I beat her for lying to me. She became angry and left.
�I will not rest until those who spilled the blood of the unborn child pay heavily for what they did.�
When contacted, Iya Shina, Adeyemo�s younger sister, told Saturday Punch that her brother should not be taken serious because he was not mentally balanced.
She said, �Have you heard such story before, that a man would sleep with his own daughter? Aanu is his last born. It was her elder sister (Bimpe) who told me that their father was sleeping with her (Aanu).
�I was not the one responsible for the abortion. The girl took some drugs on her own before she came to my house. I just saw her bleeding and I had to pay N20,000 in a hospital to get her womb flushed.
�My brother�s case has caused the family a lot of headache. The girl is now in our village; she is no more with him. His wife left him when the girl was about two years old, but I took her from her mother when she was 10. I later allowed her to go and leave with him because he requested for her.�
Speaking on what might be the problem with Adeyemo, Dr Chike Ogbana of the Psychiatric Hospital, Abeokuta, opined that the phone repairer definitely is under some influence.
�It is obvious that he is mentally sick, although he has to be tested in order to ascertain his state of mind. Again that he claims to be hearing some voice indicates that he is not well. The girl too must have suffered trauma because of what she went through in the hand of her father. For such things to happen to the girl for such a long time, the girl must have been somehow threatened, he added.