Three children that have been abandoned in a
boarding school in Abule-Iroko in Ado-Odo Ota Local Government Area of Ogun
State by their father for eight years are longing to meet their parents.
When Punch Metro visited Solid
Model College, the children recounted their ordeal, noting that the absence of
their parents was affecting their studies.
Seun Adepegba, 14, Seyi, 10 and
Titilola, 13, had been severed from parental love and care since infant-hood.
After waiting for eight years, they seemed to have relinquished all hopes of
reuniting with their parents. It was learnt that their tale of sorrow began in
2007 when their father, Mr Segun Adepegba, who had been separated from their
mother, enrolled them in the boarding school because he could not afford to
take care of them.
According to the proprietor of
the school, Mr Samuel Ayegbusi, Adepegba came to enroll them in his school on
September 24, 2007 with a promise to always check on them.
He said, “Mr. Adepegba told me
his wife had just left him and that he could not afford to take care of them,
being a jobless man. The children were very little. Seyi was two, while
Titilola was five.
“Mr Adepegba had pleaded with me
to accept them in the boarding school. Mr Adepegba’s sister promised to bear
the cost of their upkeep. They paid an initial N150, 000 for the three children
for the first term.”
But according to the proprietor,
Adepegba never kept his promise. He said after the first term, the school
expected him to come and take his children home for holiday but he never showed
up until four years later. He said the school had expended over N7m on the
upkeep of the children since 2007.
The proprietor said efforts to
reach the parents’ families had proved abortive, adding that calls to
Adepegba’s phones were not always answered.
He said, “Whenever we called him
and he realized who was talking on the phone, he would switch off his phones
and for the next two weeks, the numbers would not be available. When the school
contacted their father’s sisters, we were told that they had traveled out of
the country.
“When we called one of them, we
were told that they had sent money to Mr Adepegba to defray the children’s
school fees and upkeep.
But Mr. Adepegba has never come
here to make any payment since the initial deposit he made in 2007.”
According to the proprietor,
taking care of the children had further become cumbersome for him as one of
them, Titilayo, had started misbehaving. He recounted how Titilayo ran away
from the hostel twice without informing the school authority on the excuse that
she was going to look for her father. Ever since she was found, the
proprietor said the school had had to keep her in a room, under tight
surveillance, because she had vowed to run away to find her father.
He said, “The school is not even
bothered by the cost of their upkeep. But anytime the school closed for holiday
and parents come around to take their children home, Titilayo would fall into a
sober mood and twice, she had run away from the hostel without informing
anyone. It was a resident who stopped her and brought her back to the school.
Some of the teachers, who spoke
with Punch Metro during the visit, said the absence of the children’s parents
was seriously affecting their studies. They said the appearance of their
parents would boost their academic performance.
While recounting their days with
their father, the children said he celebrated birthdays with them. They said
they had never met their mother.
Titilayo said, “We do not know
who our mother is. We grew up in Yaba, Lagos and all we remember is that there
was a woman that washed our clothes and took care of us until we came here. We
knew she was not our mother.”
Seyi, the youngest of the trio,
however, was an exception as she kept a cheerful look during the visit. Seyi,
who told our correspondent her dream, was to become a medical doctor said,
“Although I have a faint memory of my father, I will like to see him. If he
comes today, I will ask him why he left us for so long.”
Seun added, “I don’t care how
long he has left us. I just want to see him. I really need to see him.” When
Punch Metro called Adepegba on Thursday, his phones were switched off.
Punch
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