By Two fresh graves behind a three-bedroom bungalow in the Ogooluwa community, Akiode Ibogun, in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State, mark the end of a marriage that residents say gave no warning of the violence that would consume it.
Bidemi Odukoya, Shepherd of the Celestial Church of Christ’s Iri Orun Parish, allegedly killed his wife with a machete during a domestic dispute in the early hours of Monday, August 31, before dying by suicide hours later.
What Happened
According to accounts gathered from residents, the attack occurred around 2am at the couple’s home, which sits beside the church they ran together.
After allegedly attacking his wife, Odukoya, a father of three boys, reportedly fled the community for Coker junction on the Ifo section of the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, roughly 20 minutes away, where he allegedly threw himself in front of a moving truck and died instantly. Both husband and wife were buried side by side behind their home later that same Monday.
A Community Struggling to Understand
The Baale of the community, Chief Taiwo Akiode, described the tragedy as unprecedented in the area, calling it the kind of story people usually only encounter in Nollywood films rather than their own backyard. He said the couple had lived in the community for roughly nine to ten years and were widely regarded as friendly, respectful and cheerful, which made the violence especially difficult to reconcile.
Akiode recounted being woken around 3am by residents who had already alerted police before coming to inform him. He said he was told the Shepherd had macheted his wife, and upon reaching the house found her lying in a pool of blood with a wound consistent with a machete cut, alongside a stool residents said had also been used against her.
Police arrived to photograph the scene, but the Shepherd himself was nowhere to be found at that point.
A further report reached the community around 7am that Odukoya had jumped in front of a truck along the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway. Residents sent to confirm the report found it to be true, and police at Ifo took over the case from there. Akiode said witnesses in Ifo described Odukoya crossing the expressway back and forth repeatedly before sitting on the median and then throwing himself in front of an oncoming truck.
The wife was buried around 5pm that Monday, with her husband’s body returned to the community later that evening, reportedly delayed by documentation requirements, and buried beside her shortly after 7pm.
Akiode said the community remains deeply shaken, describing the kind of violence usually heard about on the radio rather than experienced firsthand, and said it was only after the deaths that some residents began claiming the couple had a history of fighting, a history he said he personally never witnessed.
He urged couples to build their relationships on genuine love, exercise patience during disagreements, and seek counselling before marital problems escalate beyond repair.
Allegations of Infidelity on Both Sides
The community’s youth leader, Seun Adelana, said the crisis was widely understood to stem from mutual infidelity allegations, with the husband reportedly accusing his wife of seeing another man while others claimed the Shepherd himself was involved with another woman, a dynamic residents believe triggered the fatal altercation.
A Neighbour’s Account Paints a Different Picture
Not everyone in the community shared the Baale’s surprise. A neighbour, Mrs Oluwatoyin Oseni, struggling to hold back tears, said the couple, known locally as Mummy Daniel and Daddy Daniel or Iri Orun, had a long history of domestic conflict, recalling an occasion where she had to help care for the wife after one such episode, which had at one point involved police intervention that residents believed had resolved things.
She said it only emerged after the tragedy that the couple had reportedly not been speaking to each other since June, a lingering effect of their ongoing conflict.
Oseni said it was the couple’s 14-year-old son, Daniel, who woke her around 2am after realising his father had attacked his mother, prompting her and another neighbour to rush to the house.
They found the wife’s body on the floor with a broken head, covered in blood, and later learned that a machete and a wooden stool had reportedly both been used against her.
She said Daddy Daniel was still holding a cutlass when they arrived, and when she asked why he would go so far as to kill his wife, he calmly replied that he too was as good as gone, a response that kept the neighbours from approaching him further given the weapon in his hand. He then went inside the house, and the neighbours had no idea he had already slipped away from the community to end his own life on the expressway at Ifo.
Oseni said the loss was especially painful for her because she had repeatedly urged the wife to seek peace in her marriage, recalling that the wife always insisted she could not leave her children behind, particularly her youngest, a seven-year-old.
Court Case Pending at Time of Deaths
The Asiwaju of Ibogun Akiode, Chief Oluwasegun Adeboye, 76, said residents only began hearing about the couple’s marital troubles after the tragedy, since they had always come across as peaceful and well liked.
He disclosed that the couple had reportedly already taken their dispute to court and had been advised to return home to attempt an amicable resolution before coming back for further proceedings, with their next court date said to have been scheduled for Wednesday, just two days after the deaths occurred.
Some residents, he added, believe the tragedy may have involved spiritual or diabolical forces beyond ordinary explanation.
Police Response
Responding to enquiries, ASP Opeyemi Oluborode, Deputy Police Public Relations Officer for the state command, confirmed that police were aware of the case and that the file had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department for thorough investigation into the full facts surrounding the incident.
Punch
