The dream of Eunice to be married in October may have been dashed; no thanks to her lightfingeredness. She allegedly stole cash, jewellery and a Blackberry from her would-be in-laws.
Olatobi Oladele and his fiancée, Eunice, had scheduled their wedding for October. But, with recent happenings, it is now doubtful if the planned wedding will go ahead. Oladele and Eunice are not recent lovers: they had reportedly been in relationship right from their days as students of the Obefemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. That was about seven years ago.
The Oladeles hail from Ibadan, Oyo State, but live in the Ipaja area of Lagos State.
Eunice, said to be the only daughter of her family, hails from Asaba, in Delta State but was born and bred on Lagos Island. She had reportedly been welcomed with open arms by Olatobi’s parents from the first day she was brought to their home.
Madam Adetutu, Oladele’s mother, did not hesitate to give consent to the planned matrimony between the two. It is reported that on many occasions while Oladele was in observing the youth service scheme in Kano in 2011, Eunice, who was in her final year at the university then would often spend most of her time with Madam Adetutu at her shop in Lagos.
Oladele’s mother’s love for Eunice, 24, was such that when, in early 2012, the young man informed his mother of his desire to bring another girl with whom he was planning to get married, the issue became a sour point between mother and son and the entire family. In the end, Oladele had to give in to his mother’s wish that Eunice be his wife.
It was also said that after Eunice completed her youth service last year, Oladele’s mother prevented her from applying for any job, hoping that once she married her son, she would be accompanying her to China and Dubai to import goods for sale in Lagos.
However, plans had begun in earnest since February to get the planned union of Oladele and Eunice which was fixed for October on the way. But things did not go that smooth. Sometime in May, Eunice was alleged of stealing a certain amount of money, jewellery and a BlackBerry phone from Mrs Adetutu, her fiancé’s mother. It was on Sunday, May 26, 2013, and Joyce was at the Ipaja home of her inlaws- to-be for the short break.
That time, Oladele was reportedly away on an official trip to the eastern part of the country. She was informed that her fiancé was away and would only return to Lagos four days later. But she had reportedly told Madam Adetutu that she would spend the short break with her until her boyfriend returned. But, two days later, Eunice told the household she was leaving.
They were all shocked. Madam Adetutu reportedly tried persuading here to stay but she insisted she was returning to her house. She was eventually allowed to go home but not without Madam Adetutu asking her driver to drop her in her house on the Lagos Island. Five days after her visit, Madam Adetutu called her three grown up daughters to her room and informed them of a missing N180, 000 and some jewellery in her wardrobe.
Bolatito, Ireti and Aanu are the three daughters of the woman who also have unfettered access to her room. The three ladies denied knowledge of the missing items. While they all were wondering who would have burgled their mother’s room, Bolatito, the eldest child of the family, reportedly went into their mother’s suitcase on top of the wardrobe where she reportedly kept a BlackBerry phone she was presented as a birthday gift in January.
The Black- Berry phone was also missing. The only person who also entered the room was their brother’s fiancée, Eunice, who spent two days with their mother in the very room. But neither Madam Adetutu, nor her daughters could confront her on the matter.
But on Friday, 31 May, 2013, Madam Adetutu in company with two of her daughters headed for Eunice’s house on Lagos Island without announcing to her that they would be coming to her house. As fate would have it, the Oladeles arrived at Eunice’s residence while she was returning from the market where she had gone shopping.
The items reportedly found in the two big Ghana- Must-Go bags she brought out of the taxi that conveyed her home, were eye-popping. Eunice, unlike Oladele, was not born with silver spoon in her mouth, but a beauty to behold.
Apart from the suspicion of where she got the money for the kind of shopping she went for, the Oladele reportedly met a teenage boy waiting to see her in their house. When pestered on why he wanted to see Eunice, the boy reportedly informed them that her elder sister asked her to return a BlackBerry that Eunice sold to her a couple of days back.
When perused, it was discovered that the BlackBerry was the one missing at Oladeles’ house. Eunice reportedly returned while her own parents were discussing the possibility of her being the one that carted away the missing items in her would-be in-laws’ house. Upon sighting them, Eunice reportedly became jittery and almost collapsed. Her father, a retired head teacher, reportedly asked her what she knew about the phone.
But she had nothing to say but fidget. Speaking with our reporter, an eyewitness continued the story: “We were all alarmed when we just realised that a lady raised her hand and slapped another not far from where we were.
But the second lady soon joined in the beating. While the two women descended on Eunice, their mother just stood there weeping like a baby.
At the time the lady was being beating, her father had run upstairs to return with her stuff which he flung outside. He said he did not want her as his child again.” But Aanu, who was also in tears, said: “This must be the devil at play because this is a lady whose wedding to my brother is coming in another five months.
She actually stole the money, my mum’s jewellery and my sister’s BlackBerry kept in Mummy’s wardrobe. We traced her here and found a boy with a BlackBerry handset who told us that Joyce wanted to sell it to his own sister for N25, 000.”
Madam Adetutu could not be reached for comments as she was reported to have been utterly distraught. It was however said that she had chosen to leave everything Eunice allegedly stole in her house with her but the lady’s parents refused. None of the lady’s parents was available for comment on the matter.
Eunice also could not be reached but her father, a worker with Nigeria Railway Corporation, maintained that his daughter had never been accused to theft before. When confronted that the items his daughter allegedly stole from the Oladele were found on her, the man claimed that his daughter had not yet briefed him on the issue, but that it must have been a devil’s machination to bring his daughter to disrepute.
