The hope that persecution, especially religious and ethnic persecution will reduce in Nigeria is at its all time low as reports of incidents of religious persecutions keep flying around in virtually all the nooks and crannies of the country.
It will be recalled that sometime in June 2023, a popular Lagos pastor escaped assassination by the whiskers after he successfully converted two Muslim brothers to Christianity. In another instance of callousness, a young man in his late twenties was allegedly brutally murdered in cold blood in the Sabo area of Abeokuta metropolis by some irate Muslim fanatics over his perceived open pronouncement of his fate.
Meanwhile, in a related turn of events, a certain OKESADE AMINAT ABIDEMI is still at large and her whereabouts and that of her husband and only daughter still unknown. According to accounts from her elder sister, who prefers not to have her name in print, OKESADE AMINAT ABIDEMI who was a Muslim by birth had to switch faith to Christianity as a result of her marriage to one MR BABAJIDE who is a Christian.
The elder sister also confirmed that the death threats were also extended to OKESADE AMINAT ABIDEMI’S mother who later died of cardiac arrest as a result of the many death threats, calls and messages.
OKESADE AMINAT ABIDEMI was a well-to-do business young woman and a leading light in the Muslim community and a sponsor of so many many projects in the community and the Muslim association.
But in a swift turn of events, MRS OKESADE AMINAT ABIDEMI became the subject of severe persecution and threats to life by some fanatics when it was observed and noticed that she had stopped her philanthropic gestures towards the mosque and the Muslim brothers and had committed more funds and resources to the Christian fold instead.
A fact-finding team consisting of this reporter and some human rights activists after visiting her Lagos residence at House 2, Gracefield Homes Royal Pine Estate Orchid Road Lekki Lagos, for investigation revealed that OKESADE AMINAT ABIDEMI and her husband and only daughter had run for dear lives after series of attacks on them and their house.
The team was made to know that the fanatic sect had vowed to wipe off the entire OKESADE family wherever and whenever they are sighted, a pronouncement which made the family vacate their house and the environment to seek shelter elsewhere. The team then journeyed to Plot 4, Road E2 Asero estate in the Obantoko axis of Abeokuta, where the wife and daughter had relocated to seek refuge after the Lagos nightmare while the husband took another route.
It was another horrible tale of persecution and attack as the team was made to know that the irate youth and fanatics had traced the family down to Abeokuta apparently in a move to wipe the family out.
Bullet holes were seen on the walls of the house as one of the neighbours, simply identified as Fathy, took the team round the bungalow apartment.
MRS AMINAT ABIDEMI and her daughter OKESADE OMODESIRE MARIABELLA had to escape through the back exit on the tip off from Fathy who was aware of the family’s predicament.
In a copy of the police report and affidavit sighted by this reporter, OKESADE AMINAT ABIDEMI detailed the untold hardships and death threats her family suffered from the fanatics.
Efforts to reach the couple on phones proved abortive as their lines were not reachable as at the time of filing this report.