While the Edo State Police Command says it is still investigating circumstances that led to the death of 52 year old Joshua Oniha on August 4, 2016 at Emaudo Quarters in Ekpoma, Edo state.
Gender Desk has gathered that Mary Williams, 16 year old step daughter of the deceased who was alleged to have hit him with an ironing machine that night and ran away, had made confessional statements to close relatives, including her mother, Madam Grace Oniha.
The teenage girl was said to have hit her step father at the back of the neck and ran away while he bled.
He was thereafter rushed to the Emaudo Public Health Centre in Ekpoma where he was later pronounced dead.
While efforts were being made to unravel the mystery surrounding the scuffle between step father and daughter that led to his death, the teenage girl disappeared into thin air.
Madam Grace Oniha, wife of the deceased and mother of the teenager, Mary Williams, at a press briefing, stated that her daughter had told her she hit her step father on self defense while he violently raped her, almost suffocating her in an attempt to stop her from screaming.
The woman who wept all through the media chat stated: “My daughter left the country after the incident for fear of reprissal attack from my late husband’s people. They have been looking for her every where, even threatening that they would kill her if and when she is found.
I was the one who broke the news of her step father’s death to her, and she never thought he would die from the ugly incident.
I never knew my daughter was being sexually abused by her step father. I married him after the death of my husband who died in the Nyanyan, Abuja Boko Haram bomb blast on April 14, 2014.
Thereafter, we moved to Edo state, and that was where I met and married Joshua Oniha, and we started living together.
I never knew he sexually molested my daughter!
I was shocked when she told me that each time I left home to go to where I engaged in petty trading, he would sneak in, threaten and rape her, threatening her not to tell anyone or else he would kill her and poison the rest of the family. I have only three daughters from my first marriage, and this new relationship was yet to produce a child before this sad event occurred.
This continued, and she was scared to tell me or anyone until that day on August 4 2016 when she had to defend herself from his violent sexual activity. He wasn’t a gentleman, I must confess.
I am deeply hurt, that he could do such an evil thing to a child who called him father, even while I feel bad that he did not have the opportunity to live and atone for his sins.
Just imagine, it is a blow to my family and we are all depressed by it.
My daughter, Mary cannot hurt a fly, a small girl who saw him as an alternative to her biological father. But he has left her with an evergreen scar, a bad memory, and for the rest of her life that stigma will be there. ”
Meanwhile, the Edo state police command says it was still carrying out investigations on the matter.
Gender Desk will continue to follow the story as it unfolds. Stay on this page.
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Gender Desk
With Grace Ijeoma Umeh
e-mail: [email protected], or [email protected]
Tel: 08113056863.
