Photos: Woman Whom Police Husband Ran Over Her With A Vehicle Narrates Her Story

A Punch reporter visited her at a traditional orthopaedic
treatment centre in Mushin, where she is currently been treated and her words just comes out as ‘irritating’.
This was not the first time he would be beating her, he has beaten her so much she has lost count. It was a norm, her family testified to it.To add insult upon injury, she is even the bread winner.
That same bus that was used to run over her, had her largest share, the house
they lived in, she solely paid for it.

Just like the unfortunate Miss Ahmed whom her 21-year old
lover beat to death yesterday morning after her mother warned her severally to
leave him, Dupe’s mom also claims she has warned her on several occasions but she wouldn’t listen. Her story after the cut.

If there is a day 25-year-old Dupe will always regret, it is
when she met 34-year-old police corporal, Lucky Ikharia, in 2013.

Lying in excruciating pain in a room where she is receiving
treatment at a traditional orthopaedic treatment centre in Mushin, Lagos on
Wednesday – six days after an attack that has left her paralysed, she told
Saturday Punch of the events that led her husband to run over her with a bus.

Unfortunately, the young woman has not been told by the
family that after her husband attacked her, leaving her for dead, he also went
home to stab their one-year-old toddler to death.

“They told me he took my son to his hometown. Please, help
me seek the help of police authorities to ensure he brings my son back,” Dupe
told our correspondent, oblivious of the tragic truth.

The couple with their child when the going was good.

Dupe’s left leg and shoulder were completely crushed in the
attack. Her relations fear that her spinal cord might have been crushed as
well. Unfortunately, financial problem has limited their options for medical
intervention to the current traditional treatment centre where she is being
cared for.

Members of Staff at the centre said they had not been able
to move the young woman for an X-ray because the injuries on her back were
extensive and feared her spine might have been affected.

The young woman cannot sit up on her own and can hardly turn
her sides on the bed. To dress the wound on her back she is usually propped up
on the wall.

“When the vehicle first hit me and ran over my legs, I tried
to lift myself up but my strength failed. Then I saw the vehicle reverse. I
thought that was the end of my life. That was when I realised it was my
husband. I could not crawl out of the way anymore. I just lay back on the
ground. This time, the ran over me completely; the bus’ tyres ran over my
shoulder, my back and down to my legs. Then, he sped off,” Dupe said.

It was obvious the vehicle’s tyres narrowly missed her head.
Our correspondent saw an extensive injury that ran from her neck through her
back, down to her legs. The photos of the injury are too gory for publication.

Each word Dupe spoke was with a lot of pain.

Ikharia has not been seen since the alleged attack and
murder of their child at their Kale Close, Mafoluku, Oshodi residence. He was
said to have tried to kill himself as well but survived and it is believed his
police colleagues at the Makinde Police Station are hiding him.

The policeman allegedly attacked his wife following a fight
about a missing N2,000, which he reportedly saved in the house.

Dupe gave a narration of how she came to be a victim of an
abusive husband, who finally wanted to kill her.

“He beat me all the time. I could not question him because I
got punched and slapped every time I opened my mouth and he did not like what I
said,” she said.

Asked why she did not simply leave the man, she said she
believed he was going to change.

She said, “When I met him, he was living in a patrol
vehicle. He told me he liked me and was nice at the time. I did not know he had
no home. Anytime I visited him, it was always at his friend’s place.

“Then one night, I met him in the vehicle he was sleeping
in, I asked why he could not get an apartment, he said his ex-wife, a
policewoman he had just separated from, sent him packing. The woman was the one
who rented the apartment.

“I already had two children from a previous marriage but I told
him he could come over to stay with me.

“Within the period he was living with me, I got pregnant and
we had to go to the registry to formalise the union. When I asked to meet with
his family, he said if I valued my life, I should not make an attempt to
contact them. He said they were trying to destroy his life and he had to
distance himself from them.”

Dupe said one of his husband’s sisters, who came for the
registry ceremony, told her that Ikharia already had two previous wives apart
from the policewoman.

Dupe said her husband’s behaviour changed immediately he
packed into her house.

She said, “He told me he wanted to buy a bus and begged me
for some money, I took a loan and sold my jewellery. I paid a larger part of
the cost. That is the same vehicle he used to run over me.

“When I was pregnant, he gave me some drugs to abort the
baby but that did not work. There was a time he threw my baby out of the
window.

“Our quarrels were always just before the end of the month
when he was supposed to get his salary. He always did that so I would not have
the courage to ask for money for the upkeep of the house.

“I wondered why he would lock me out of the same house I
rented with my money and take my baby away. I had been warned but somehow I
kept hoping that he would change.”

Dupe, who was a filling station attendant before her ordeal
said there was a time she paid N80,000 for a freezer which the seller refused
to deliver. She reported the case to her husband.

“I thought being a policeman, he would be able to retrieve
my money. My husband arrested the man, got the money. He told me he had
collected the money but that he used it to settle a debt. That was the last
time I heard about the money,” she said.

Our correspondent spoke to Dupe’s mother, an elderly woman
who said she would prefer anonymity.

The devastated mother asked for discretion when speaking
with Dupe since the family had not notified her of the tragic murder of her
baby.

She said, “We will not tell her until much later when she is
well. I have always known that Lucky was an animal. He beat her all the time.
He would destroy her phone after each beating so that she won’t be able to
contact us.

“We asked for his family but we got no reply. When my daughter
became pregnant for him, I even suggested she aborted the baby, but my daughter
refused. She was so adamant about him. We told her to leave the policeman but
she did not listen. Now see what has happened.

“The problem now is that we have no money to take care of
her. We can only appeal to well-meaning Nigerians to come to our aid so that
Dupe can be well again.”

But police authorities said all these are allegations they
are trying to unravel.

Spokesperson of the Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Kenneth
Nwosu, told our correspondent on the phone that an investigation has started
and could not disclose too much information at the moment.

“We cannot say anything for certainty for now because all
these allegations have to be pieced together. There are still some information
that have not been verified. We will release information as time goes on,”
Nwosu said.