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Opeyemi Olatoke, a 20-year-old lady locked up for five years in an abandoned house at Alfa Fire area, in Ikirun,Ifelodun Local Government Area of Osun State has been rescued by the Osun State Government with the Nigeria Police Force.
The father of the lady, identified as Samson Olatoke and her brother, who were alleged to have locked her up were also arrested by the police.
A statement signed by the Commissioner for Women, Children and Social Affairs, Barrister Olubukola Olaboopo, and made available to newsmen by her Media Assistant, Oyedele Kehinde, on Monday, said that the matter was reported to her office by an NGO-Value Female Network.
“The ministry and the police swung into action, we went to the house where the 20-year-old girl was locked up by her father. The father disclosed that he locked up the girl because she was physically challenged. The victim’s mother informed us that Opeyemi’s health started to deteriorate when she shouted from her sleep at age four and since then she was lame,” the commissioner said.
Olaboopo urged parents to take good care of their children, saying parents found maltreating their wards will be dealt with according to the laws of the state.
The founder, Value Female Network, Dr Aderibigbe explained that “an anonymous source disclosed the information to our organisation that a man had locked up his physically challenged child in an abandoned family house for five years in Ikirun, adding that the father of the child only feeds the girl once in a while.”