Thursday, February 3, 2011

In danger for the sake of Faith

By David Ibemere







Policeman brutalizes a 17-year-old for falling in love with another teenager, alleges he stole her phone





SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Gbadebo Oloruntimilehin, who lives at No. 9, JMJ Quarters, Ajegunle, Lagos has been known to be an easy-going fellow, who loves football very much.



[img]http://odili.net/news/source/2011/feb/3/guardian/images/gbadebo_metro_3-2_200_160[1].jpg[/img]
In danger for the sake of Faith

http://odili.net/news/source/2011/feb/3/27.html




Well-spoken about by his peers and elders, he also makes friends easily, boys and girls, and likes to try out new things, electronic gadgets particularly.



But his love for football and his dreams of playing overseas might have been truncated as a consequence of the beating he allegedly got from a Corporal, Wale Omoseye of Tolu Police Station, Ajegunle, Lagos State. Trouble started brewing for Gbadebo when, sometime last year, he met a girl called Faith Akintoye and they became friends.



Initially, the friendship blossomed with the two young people always in each other's company.The boy even bought her a handset, a Nokia 6288 at N8,000.00.



Then, suddenly, Faith's mother did not want to see Gbadebo anywhere near her daughter and warned him to steer clear.



She is alleged to have threatened that if he persisted, she would leave him with a mark he would live with all his life.



According to Gbadebo: "Due to the warning and the threat from Faith's mother, I told her we had to end our friendship.



"Although we still met once in a while, usually at public functions, our relationship was over.

"It was obvious, however, that I still liked her and she felt the same way about me. But, there was nothing I could do.



"Continuing the relationship would have been stupid of me, particularly when Faith's mother attempted to bathe me with acid.



"I was lucky to have run away, but not before some of the acid she threw at me had splashed on and burnt my hand.



"Two weeks after I was discharged from the hospital, I asked Faith to return the phone I gave her but she refused. So I planned to forcefully collect the phone from her."



The boy who thought that he had cut all links to Faith with the retrieval of his phone had underestimated the depth of bitterness nursed against him by her mother.



Narrating his story to The Guardian on Tuesday, Gbadebo, who was obviously in severe pains, said: "I succeeded in collecting the phone from Faith.



"She told her mother, who reported me to her friend, a police corporal, Wale Omoseye who, last Saturday, arrested me where I worked in Ajegunle.



"Without telling me anything, he began to beat me and I demanded to know what I did."



Gbadebo said the Police Corporal brutalized him, flogged him, threw him against a wall twice then "warned me to stay away from Faith.



Continuing, he said: " I have been having sever pains on my back.



" According to the doctor at Merit Medical Care, Tolu, my spinal cord seems to be affected and that is why I can't walk properly."



He added that he only walked with the aids of a stick.