A tricenarian mother of three, Deborah Henry, from Tanzoluti village of Lamurde local government area, southern senatorial district, Adamawa state, northeast Nigeria cried in agony for help to have her children rescued from their alleged predator, sodomite father, whose name is given as Yohanna Iliya, also a tricenarian who replaces his wife with his sons in sodomy with impunity, enjoying the pulpit and the community cover as alleged.
The frustrated mother, nearly claimed by depression, lamented that her weeping and tears were not sufficient to move the police, the community and religious leaders to empathy in sympathy of her hapless children’s helplessness. They instead considered her as demented who would not conceal the trouble within the family, to be casting for outside help.
Henry said she was informed that there is an NGO that fights against rape and other related offences in Yola called Adamawa Action Against Rape, ANAR, she should contact to register her complaints. It was the reason for her visit to the office.
Henry narrated to ANAR complaint desk officer that their house would not be made a home, however much she tried because it was built on a filthy foundation, fenced with stench.
Trouble started right from the wedding day, on 20th April 2011. The groom, after wedding ceremony, told the bride that “he only managed to marry me because he claimed to have been informed that I was an outrageous flirt,” a painful unfounded allegation that can only be tolarated, coming from misinformed husband without filing for libel before the law.
“Till death” was getting weak to get the bride and groom like broom together. They got separated in 2019, after having been blessed with 3 male children; the eldest son having 9 years of age, followed by 6 years and the third 4 years, as at present. “The boys were however 7 years, 4 years and 2 years old respectively, when we got separated,” Henry explained.
Henry alleged that she was poisoned on 17th October, 2019, which she later believed that it was her husband Iliya who tried to eliminate her.
The allegation was informed – as she pointed out – that she overheard Iliya with his brother discussing on having her strangled to death, which made her fled from the bloody blade and the fury fist for her life.
Henry said she fled along with the children but returned after 6 days, thinking that the husband would by then consider holy option against eliminating her.
“On getting back to the hammer house of horror later to be reduced to a home of incestuous sodomy, I developed a partial stroke on my left side that I had to go seeking for treatment with my parents, believing it to be a spiritual attack,” Henry said.
While receiving treatment in her family house, the husband did neither visit nor send money for her treatment. “It got to a point that I was so depressed. Many people in the community thought that I had run mad. They in fact, labelled me as a mad woman.
“My family took me to psychiatric hospital in Yola but the psychiatrist confirmed that I wasn’t mad, rather I was just suffocating from depression out of frustration for which cause must be addressed.
“While I was receiving treatment, the children lived with their incestuous sodomite father who took the pleasure in sodomising them, helplessly painfully, crying against their wish”.
Henry said she got aware of the disgusting development when the sodomite agreed to allow the children to spend the weekends with her. It was like they were freed from hell to paradise.
“The last born, 4 years old, complained that their father, used to put his penis in his anus and it’s paining him.
“When I enquired to find out what was happening from the older brothers, I got the shock of my life that their father defaulted all the three of them.
“I became more convinced, terribly too, when their father came to take them back, the youngest son was crying fearfully that he didn’t want to follow the father until brute force was used.
“I also learnt that the neighbours use to hear the kids crying in the night but no one bothers to say anything. It were his children after all, they could be thinking.
“I reported the dual abominations to the police but the officers did not give me a listening ear. They just told me to go and meet the community leader to resolve whatever issues I have with my husband. The disappointing, near ostracised treatment made me to contemplate, perhaps because people labelled me a mad woman, hence must live without a case.
“Similarly, When I went to church on Sunday, I heard the pastor denouncing that some people report to the police their grievances instead of coming to the church and to complain, yet claimed to be Christians. I conceived that the pastor was referring to me.
“People in the community keep undue vigil on me. Interrogating where I was going with my children whenever they saw us together; suspecting that I would run away with them. They blamed me for abandoning my children and have directed that I should go back to the incestuous sodomite. However, I feel both my children and I are not safe with the predator shielded by the gullible members of the community.
“He Brags that he’s above the law in matters concerning his children, whatever he’s doing with them. He rejects the idea of having them examined at the hospital. I don’t know what to do or whom to report to save her kids, until I learnt about ANAR. Please help my children, the greater tomorrow from the house of sodomy”.
