A final year student of the
Lagos State University (LASU), Udouko Ememabasi, has cried out for justice
after enduring an attack on the alleged order of her landlord, Idowu Shodipo,
and his mother.
In an interview with
DailyTrust, Ememabasi said trouble started when she and her friend, Eseh Gift
Uduoghene, returned home at about 8pm on August 12, 2024, and found a waste bin
in front of their room
“We asked our neighbour if he knew who put the
dustbin there. He said it was our landlord. We went to meet the landlord but
met his mother in her shop and asked why her son did that. She said someone
came around that was why they put it there and I told the woman I was not
aware. Immediately, the woman stood up and started insulting me. The next thing
she did was slap me and start beating me. She hit me on the spot where I did my
surgery,” she said.
Udouko said her friend had to
drag her away from the scene.
“We went inside the house and locked the door
and all the windows. She started hitting our door and banging at our window.
She called me all sorts of names. People that didn’t know what was happening
came and started hitting my door, banging at my window. At about 10:30pm to
11:00pm, her sons were back, they started banging at my door, trying to melt my
iron door to break into the house.” she said
The lady said when she
contacted the police they said they were far away and could not make it.
“They couldn’t come to our rescue. We were
scared that these people were going to harm us because nobody was there to
rescue us. I called my father but he stays in Ogun state, so he could not come
down that night,” she said.
The student said that on August
13, around 5pm, she and her friend prepared to go to the police station to
report the matter but discovered that the door to their apartment had been
padlocked from outside.
“What if we had died overnight?
What if someone had entered through the window to kill us? What would have
happened? Or what if somebody had tried to set fire to set us ablaze? We
wouldn’t have been able to escape because we were locked inside. They put off
the light and water. I called my father, who came to plead with them that they
should look at him as an elderly person. They deceived my dad that they had
agreed.
He told me to go and apologize
to them even if I did nothing wrong. As I went out, the landlord collected my
apartment key, after which he sent one of his boys, who hit my friend and I
with something like an electric barbed wire.
I became dizzy. My head was
banging at that moment. This happened in front of my father. He pleaded with
them again but they did not listen to my dad. The mother told them to beat us.
They hit us with different things.
My friend tried to run outside,
but there were already plenty of people outside as if it was planned. A lot of
people were outside. They were beating my friend and she was bleeding from her
nose. We were brutalized.”
When contacted, the acting Dean
of Students’ Affairs, Dr Surajudeen Fatai, said he did the best he could to
prevent the ladies from being brutalized.
“I did what I was supposed to
do as Dean of Student Affairs. When I was called late in the night, I went there.
They could have killed me if I had supported the students because I met over 50
people in the compound. I was prostrating on the floor begging and pleading on
their behalf,” he said
The final-year student added
that the matter was reported at the Adolf Police Station, Iba.
While seeking justice, she
said;
“I am calling on the relevant
authorities to please step in because my life is being threatened because I got
the police to arrest those involved in the case. The landlord and his mother
have threatened to deal with me.”
When contacted, Shodipo
dismissed the allegations saying Ememabasi hit his mother first.
“She slapped my mother. The matter is in court
and we have been ordered not to comment until the second hearing. Even when the
school management came around and we told them the beginning of the issue, they
backed out. I didn’t touch her. She slapped an elderly 70-year-old woman. It is
not true that her life is being threatened. I was locked up in the station for
five days,” he said
Ememabasi, however, denied
slapping the landlord’s mother.
“It is not true. That’s what she told her son
that made them assault and brutalize my friend and me,” she said.
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